so i'm sitting here watching the tv program 'COPS' and they're in Mesa (CA?) and their operation makes me want to fucking puke!!!!

this episode is a bicycle sting. what they're doing is having a female officer ride a bicycle up to a Walgreens and leave it out front unattended. and whoever steals the bike they arrest. the first person they nabbed was this real skinny white girl. they cornered her in the back of the store and basically treated her like an armed bank robber. they were man handling this girl. wrestling her to the ground and all. she wasnt even resisting. cant the cops stop real criminals? or do they meet their quotas by tricking people?

either way i'm disgusted that tax dollars are used this way. :roll: :roll:

[/end rant]

Re: I Hate COPS

I remember watching an episode where they set up a sting to catch dudes buying hookers. They were waiting in a hotel closet for the dudes to come in with the "hookers," and would bust 'em once they paid the money... but they were fucking cracking jokes and laughing in the closet the whole time! it was like playing a kid's game of cops and robbers meets hide and seek. They seriously were sitting in the closet talking about how funny it was going to be once they caught the dude :MadNow:

can they even do that? how can they claim that the dude was going to pay for prostitution, when the "prostitute" wasn't really a prostitute? fucking entrapment. get the killers for fuck's sake

and the hippies :lol:

Re: I Hate COPS

thats the other brand of sting that makes me want to puke. that kind of sting is on COPS all the time. in nearly every city they visit. but this bicycle thing is just taking it to far. its almost like they're twisting the arms of these people to turn them from honest to thieves. i dont like it.

Re: I Hate COPS

Merchant bankers all of em. Over here the traffic cops haver adapted a new method for catching speeding motorist. They park a van on a minor road and sit in the back with a camera pointing out of the back window. Now i know we shouldnt speed but is this really necessary, we have a static speed camera on vitualy every road there is. Wouldnt thier time be better spent finding the real criminals? :MadNow:

[quote=Jibgolly]Location: with rod stewart[/quote] :lol:

Re: I Hate COPS

to a traffic cop a speeding driver is a criminal. cops, imo, are inbred politicians who couldnt cut it in city office.

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[img]http://www.hogritude.com/images/farmsanctuary/poisengrace.jpg[/img]

:twisted:

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smells like bacon in here... cops are fuckin idiots that are power trippin

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=Jibgolly] cant the cops stop real criminals? [/quote]

Like bicycle thieves? You don't consider theft a "real" crime? If they were busting some girl for smoking pot or something else that doesn't really hurt anyone else, I could understand this argument, but theft is most definitely a real crime that should be dealt with.

[quote=Jibgolly] or do they meet their quotas by tricking people? [/quote]

I wouldn't consider what they're doing tricking people. A sting operation is usually started in a area with a history of criminal activity (there were probably bikes being stolen there on a regular basis.) Presenting an opportunity whereby someone commits a crime of their own initiative is not a trick. Now, if the police officer were standing by the bike and told the girl "Hey, wanna steal this bike?" That would be a different story, but if the girl stole a bike that just happened to be part of a sting operation, I don't have much sympathy for her.

Though I dislike some things police do, I usually give them the benfit of the doubt. Most of them are just regular joes doing their job. I know it looks differently on TV, but the show "COPS" tends to portray police in an overly aggressive light because everybody wants to be in the front of the camera so you sometimes have 8 officers arresting 1 suspect.

Sorry, but I'm taking the cops' side over the thief's this time.

Re: I Hate COPS

It's called entrapment. I'm not sure how the department got away with it, but as is so often true with the cases featured on COPS, the charges were probably dropped by the DA.

Re: I Hate COPS

hey i'm all for stopping a thief. whether it be a bicycle, car, or anything of value. but when the cops set people up like this it bothers me.

Re: I Hate COPS

I'm sorry, but I disagree. Theft is theft. Speeding is speeding. Lopark is right, there usually is a history built before they go out to perform a sting operation. There is a speed trap right in front of my office, because it's a shortcut for people and they tend to race down the residential street that is under construction.

I do like an idea they do here locally. They put a crash test dummy dressed up like a cop in a cop car and park it on the side of the road. It slows down the traffic.

I've only gotten 1 speeding ticket in my life, but I was speeding... They don't give out tickets if you aren't speeding, or aren't drunk, or if you walk by an unlocked bike without stealing it.

I can understand being upset about rough handling of the girl in the story, I think a lot of their actions are a tad heavy-handed, but you have to keep in mind what kind of scum they deal with on a daily basis. This isn't to defend their actions, I believe that they could be a bit more gentle most of the time, but then what do you tell a gentle cop's wife after he's killed because he took something too lightly?

A couple cops got shot in front of my building (downtown) a month ago on a routine DWI stop. They didn't know the guy was wanted, nor did they know he was armed. I'm sure that if they were a bit more heavy handed with him, they wouldn't have got shot (they both lived, the guy wasn't so lucky).

It's a very delicate balancing act that has to be performed. It's a thin line with tons of grey area on both sides. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Overall, I respect the work they do, and am very happy to call a good number of them my friends.

<---Weee, post 100!

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=skahound]It's called entrapment. I'm not sure how the department got away with it, but as is so often true with the cases featured on COPS, the charges were probably dropped by the DA.[/quote]

No, entrapment is when the police lead you in to a crime. As if an undercover narcotics agent walked up and asked if you would like to buy some drugs. If you walk to the undercover and ask for drugs, it's not entrapment because the undercover did not initiate the crime.

The bicycle didn't ask the girl to steal it. Nor did anyone else. The cops merely left the bicycle in a place where the theft would appear to be easy. They didn't initiate the girl to steal the bike. She did it on her own, therefore not entrapment.

Re: I Hate COPS

good friday, easterdinner w/ the folks, cop comes to my door to collect an over due fine for a headlamp out. cop comes into my house and proceeds to lecture me about responsiblity in front of the my folks, for 45 minutes wouldn't leave, i'm 28 w/out anything remotely illegal about my lifestyle (uhhhh...) total harassment bullshit, f- the police, absolutely, yeah and did i mention f- the police.........

Re: I Hate COPS

I don't feel bad for that girl that tried to steal that bike. She did try to steal it which is a crime. It wouldn't be a problem if she wasn't trying to steal it and walked right on by.

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=Jibgolly]either way i'm disgusted that tax dollars are used this way. :roll: :roll:[/quote] agree!

i wonder if our buddy osama bin laden watches cops and laughs at us too. :?:

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=lopark]No, entrapment is when the police lead you in to a crime. As if an undercover narcotics agent walked up and asked if you would like to buy some drugs. If you walk to the undercover and ask for drugs, it's not entrapment because the undercover did not initiate the crime.[/quote] "Hey baby, would you like a good time?"

like I said earlier... fucking entrapment :MadNow:

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=picklemonkey][quote=lopark]No, entrapment is when the police lead you in to a crime. As if an undercover narcotics agent walked up and asked if you would like to buy some drugs. If you walk to the undercover and ask for drugs, it's not entrapment because the undercover did not initiate the crime.[/quote] "Hey baby, would you like a good time?"

like I said earlier... fucking entrapment :MadNow:[/quote]

If your referring to your post about the prositution sting, the guy would have had to ask the undercover first. If the undercover make the first offer, then yes, that would have been entrapment. I don't think I've seen that episode so I can't say which it was.

Re: I Hate COPS

"Something's rotten in the State of Denmark."

I still stand behind my original claim. First of all, we do [b]not[/b] know if the charges were ever filed and the people prosecuted. The only thing that we get to see is the arrest, which in these cases, might be wrong. Law, as I've studied it and continue to study it, is a philosophy of 'maybe' and 'it depends'. The bike story is just another example of how 'it depends'.

Believe me, if I ever go into practicing law, it would [b]NEVER[/b] be criminal defense law. But I can still agree that placing a bike, even though lopark is right that technically this is not entrapment, it is still a fine line.

Re: I Hate COPS

How does a show like this stay on air for so long? How long has it been on TV by the way? I would venture to guess for more than 10 years it's been on Fox.

Re: I Hate COPS

Bad Boys, Bad Boys, what ya gonna do? what ya gonna do when they come for you? :KillYou:

cant always hate on cops. you hate them when they mess with u, but u need them when some shit goes down in ur neighborhood. all in all they are just doin their jobs, they are already under enough stress as it is, GIVE'EM a BREAK

Re: I Hate COPS

Recent cop story:

We're standing in line at the AAA and realize we can't bring our cameras in. Me and my friend are freaking because we have nowhere to put them, mine isn't even mine, it's my girl's. So we're walking around trying to figure if we should stash them or not. One of my other friends said he would sneak mine in, so I'm set. My friend (like an idiot, I know) walks up to 2 cops standing by the steps and asks if one of them could hold it and he could get it back from him later. The bitchass looks him right in the face, laughs and says "What, your gonna ask a cop to be your fucking personal assistant?" "No, I won't hold your camera." Then they proceed to stand there and make jokes about him as we walk away. Protect and serve, right?

The fact is alot of cops abuse their power and are on some over compensating asshole trip. I realize they deal with shit we can only dream of and could lose their life at any time, but that does not give them free reign to be assholes because of it.

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=evangelion]I realize they deal with shit we can only dream of and could lose their life at any time, but that does not give them free reign to be assholes because of it.[/quote] :RightOn::RightOn::RightOn:

Re: I Hate COPS

^^^ Only the truth, baby, only the truth. :Bingo:

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[quote=evangelion] I realize they deal with shit we can only dream of and could lose their life at any time, but that does not give them free reign to be assholes because of it.[/quote]

True, but I have yet to find any profession that isn't littered with assholes. It's not exclusive to cops. I would estimate that humanity is about 50% assholes. Most of them you don't notice because they're not assholes all the time. Same is true with cops, but since most people only see cops when they're getting a speeding ticket or being told what they can or can't do, people think they're assholes on a power trip.

I guess I have a different perspective because I know a lot of cops. Most of them are really nice guys.

Re: I Hate COPS

1. This case is not entrapment, dirty perhaps but legal.
2. Most cops IMO were bullyed at school, hence the need to be in authority.
3. Majority of cops do a good job, if perhaps a little OTT most of the time.
4. Most laws are wrong, this puts the police in a difficult situation.

Good on them for targeting petty crime, if all petty crime was stopped then i'm certian just like in NYC crime overall will fall dramatically.

Re: I Hate COPS

I personally don't have an inherent problem with cops - the ones in my city are laid-back as hell and have been nothing but cool in all my dealings with them - but something still bugs the hell out of me with this bike theft thing....

If you are FUCKING STUPID enough to leave your bike unlocked in front of a busy store, you deserve to have it stolen. :evil: If they are after bike thieves, just go to any university campus in America and bust the people who go around cutting locks.

This sting would be like sending an undercover cop wearing KKK garb into Compton and arresting anybody who tries to assault him.

"To Protect & Serve (those who are too stupid to look out for themselves)"

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=lopark] True, but I have yet to find any profession that isn't littered with assholes. It's not exclusive to cops. I would estimate that humanity is about 50% assholes. Most of them you don't notice because they're not assholes all the time. Same is true with cops, but since most people only see cops when they're getting a speeding ticket or being told what they can or can't do, people think they're assholes on a power trip.

I guess I have a different perspective because I know a lot of cops. Most of them are really nice guys.[/quote] I know a lot of police officers as well - my brother is one. I will agree that most professions have assholes scattered throughout, but I think the point is that it's a 'take it or leave it' type of situation that we're faced with when it comes to law enforcement.

If I go into Wal-Mart and the woman behind the counter is a jag-off to me, I complain to her boss and walk out. I take my business elsewhere. Unfortunately that same sort of retaliatory behavior is not an option when it comes to a police officer treating us like low-life scum (as in Jeff's example). A similar situation occurred to me several years ago as I was walking through downtown Orlando. I came upon a crosswalk where the light was green to walk. Upon taking 1 step onto the street it turned to a flashing hand (warning pedestrians not to start crossing) so I took a step back onto the corner to wait. I then heard a voice behind me that said, "That's right, you better take a step back." I look over to see where it was coming from and there were 2 cops staring back at me. He then said, "That's right, I was talking to you. Try to cross you little bitch and see what happens." Where did this come from? I did my part my obeying the law and this is the way I'm treated?

I don't have a bad taste in my mouth because of this one incident. Virtually every other encounter I've had with law enforcement has been more than enjoyable, but I think we can all agree that there are some out there who's experiences have been less than desirable on numerous occassions and therefore, they harbor a resentment and hatred for the men and women in uniform.

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote]I look over to see where it was coming from and there were 2 cops staring back at me. He then said, "That's right, I was talking to you. Try to cross you little bitch and see what happens." Where did this come from? I did my part my obeying the law and this is the way I'm treated? [/quote]

See that is when I turn around and flip them off, it is not illegal to flick off an officer anymore.

:TNF:

I have only gotten in trouble when I have broken the law, that is all. I leave them to their donuts they leave me to my activities.

Plus in Jersey City the cops have better things to worry about then me.

Re: I Hate COPS

I hate also.. :twisted: :!:

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[quote=skahound]He then said, "That's right, I was talking to you. Try to cross you little bitch and see what happens." Where did this come from? I did my part my obeying the law and this is the way I'm treated?[/quote] well that's what you get for being a little bitch :lol:

I've normally had no problems with cops, but I know plenty of friends that have been treated unfairly and I see it on TV all the time to know that they're something to watch for.

Re: I Hate COPS

i think that local cops are worse(not just because a good friend is a state cop). alot of local cops are stupid rejects that could not make it higher, and are in it to feel tough and push people around.

my buddy is in it for the right reason and i never have to bite my toung around him about what i get up to.

Re: I Hate COPS

my brother in-law was a police officer in Chicago for a couple years. he's one of the nicest, warm, caring guys ive ever known. cant imagine him being a dick to people because he holds a position of power. i just think certain ones are dicks cos they can get away with it. to clarify my thread title. i hate 'COPS' the tv show. not cops the people.

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=skahound]A similar situation occurred to me several years ago as I was walking through downtown Orlando. I came upon a crosswalk where the light was green to walk. Upon taking 1 step onto the street it turned to a flashing hand (warning pedestrians not to start crossing) so I took a step back onto the corner to wait. I then heard a voice behind me that said, "That's right, you better take a step back." I look over to see where it was coming from and there were 2 cops staring back at me. He then said, "That's right, I was talking to you. Try to cross you little bitch and see what happens." Where did this come from? I did my part my obeying the law and this is the way I'm treated?.[/quote]

Dude, that is seriously messed up. It must be something with Florida...cops are dicks everywhere around here. :Middlefi:

[quote=Jibgolly]to clarify my thread title. i hate 'COPS' the tv show. not cops the people.[/quote]

Tangents...gotta love 'em. :D

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=ecpolonyc][img]http://www.hogritude.com/images/farmsanctuary/poisengrace.jpg[/img]

:twisted:[/quote] :lol: theres a classic

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=Jibgolly]to clarify my thread title. i hate 'COPS' the tv show. not cops the people.[/quote] [img]http://plig.org/things/pictures/hijack.jpg[/img]

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[img]http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/simpsons/images/340/wiggum.jpg[/img]

Re: I Hate COPS

[quote=krelm] If you are FUCKING STUPID enough to leave your bike unlocked in front of a busy store, you deserve to have it stolen. :evil: [/quote]

I'd be quicker to say "If you are FUCKING STUPID enough to keep stealing bikes in the same place as to the point a sting operation is put into play, you deserve to get arrested."

Re: I Hate COPS

So, how 'bout them Mets?

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bump

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bump