Police Brutality

Another article I read and here are my thoughts!

Click to see the article here ..I read it in the actual newspaper so it might differ.

Police corruption has always been a question on people's minds for a very long time and this is because the police are no longer citizens protecting citizens, they are citizens turned police officers. Police officers are now a group of citizens that join together and do as they are trained and sometimes more. The authority and higher power gets to the heads of the police officers and eventually they turn into different people. In this article, people are commenting on their personal views of the articles topic "Are police 'above the law?'" The Toronto Star is taking a stand and trying to see what people actually think about the topic of police corruption as it has always been in the hearts of everyone after hearing and seeing different situations so now they can speak on it and citizens don't have many nice things to say.

 People that have been through police corruption situations will not trust the police's word for anything. It is clearly shown in the article as everyone who has commented has commented against the police and believes that they do, in fact, believe they are above the law. The only person who didn't was an SIU Executive Officer who said that the "civilian agency" is doing a great job at keeping corruption away from police forces. However, two people decided to refute this and argued that this "civilian agency" he is talking about is made up of ex-police officers. Therefore, police officers are helping keep police forces clean? I don't think so - this seems more like a helping hand at keeping it "in the family." A women proclaimed that the police is sometimes untrained for situations that she caught herself in with her son being schizophrenic and being dying due to reasons that are undisclosed, however, she advises that the police are untrained for the mentally ill and act in ways that they act with citizens that are not mentally ill. The same website, hotline or meeting place can solve the issues of these people. They need to share their opinions and situations in order to make themselves feel they have left their mark and have done something to better society in a way. Just like many police forces have charities or organizations that promote different causes, they should have a cause for those who have been in situations of police corruption in order to show citizens that police officers are also aware of the corruption and there are good police officers out there. All these people are asking for is some gratitude and an apology, and these gestures can give them their safety back. For any professional representing these groups, they should be very careful in the context they address these people in. They are a sensitive group of people who feel they have been stripped of their safety because they have no 911 to call anymore simply because they don't trust 911. Use of terms, words and authority need to be carefully taken into consideration when addressing the issue of police corruption.

And this is not to say that all cops are bad either, but there are some rotten ones..