Comment by bjourne
4 months ago
"in the US" Cause the US is the whole world? Cops may be less of a threat to Democracy in a third-world country, such as the US, precisely because rampant crime means they have less time to spend curtailing the freedoms of mostly law-abiding people.
'Rampant crime' doesn't mean that cops are doing something about it.
Solving crime is hard work, and dealing with criminals is dangerous work[1], and why would you work hard or risk your life[1] when you can do neither (and can instead brutalize or harass law-abiding people who won't fight back)?
In Seattle[2], emergency police response times are, on average, 70 minutes. Non-emergency response times are 3 hours.
(Meanwhile, the city's third-highest-earning cop was cited for falling asleep in their patrol car in a bus lane, while clocking in overtime. She should be breaking rocks with her teeth in state prison for overtime fraud, not given a badge and a gun... But the whole department is rotten to the core.)
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[1] Of course, America's cultural obsession with guns and violence means that cops often assume that anyone they are dealing with is actively planning to murder them... And are quick to pre-emptively use (in)appropriate levels of force.
[2] Which is not overrun by 'Rampant Crime' despite what professional liars on television zooming in on a single burning trash can might say.
I specified "in the US" because I don't know enough about crime or policing in the rest of the world for my thoughts on them to have any value.
>I specified "in the US" because I don't know enough for my thoughts on them to have any value.
Yep. There. FTFY. And you're welcome.