Government should always be for the People, by the People...

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Like I told Adrienne this morning on the Fb...  I often get bogged down talking about the "bad cops" out there and I realize that not all cops are "bad cops".  I suspect that most aren't.  I don't hate cops.  I don't hate anyone.  I dislike bad cops, as well as bad people.

I do believe that any LEO that may be a "good cop" in every other way, but sits back while his fellow officers break the law and abuse citizens, is a bad cop.  I understand covering each others back.  I was an 11B for several of the years that I was in the Army.  I know that you have to watch out for each other.  I also know that the law is for everyone, including cops.

I believe that Law Enforcement in this country is out of control.  I believe that the militarization of our police forces has driven a wedge between the police and the People.  I believe that a lot of the cops like it that way.  I believe that there have always been cops who are cops simply because they may get the opportunity to beat people down.  I believe that there are more of those cops today than there were in the past.

I served with the 720th MP Battalion, 401st MP Company at Fort Hood, Texas for a year and a half in the mid 70s.  I currently have longtime friends who are local LEOs and who are Sheriff's deputies.  I have been around cops, and close to cops for most of my adult life.  When I was a kid my next door neighbor and I were in the Boy Scouts together.  His dad was a local cop as well as our Scout Master.  Point being, I know a little bit about cops.  I may see them a bit differently than others do, for better or worse.

I made the statement in a blog post here a couple of years ago that cops come out of their watch meetings each day with the mindset that they are going to war.  It's an instinct for self-preservation.  I also stated that you are the enemy that they are going to war against.  I still believe that.  Anyway, that post elicited a response from a gentleman in Arizona who had just retired from the Compton, California Police Department.  He told me that I was wrong, that HE had never gone out on the streets with that mindset.  We had good conversations over many months.  He was a Marine Corps veteran who served in Viet Nam in a place that was really ugly, at a time that was really ugly.  His attitude toward modern law enforcement seemed to change when the SWAT Team in Arizona murdered Jose Guerena. 

Anyway, this is another of those posts that goes nowhere...  :)  Perhaps Six will chime in here and straighten me out, if I need straightening out?  :)

My point is that there are some LEOs out there who do believe in the rights of the People.  They do believe in the Constitution.  They do do the right thing.  It just seems that there aren't many of the Good Guys in law enforcement left.  That's too bad.

Here is a story about a group of Sheriffs doing the right thing.

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