Lloyd Lofthouse

Confessions of a former cop

GFBrandenburg's Blog

This is a very important piece. Please read it and share it. It’s by a 10-year veteran of some city in California, who calls himself a bastard.

The article contains three lessons for us all. What are they?

Confessions of a Former Bastard Cop

Officer A. Cab

Officer A. CabFollowJun 6·22min read

I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so…

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Lloyd Lofthouse

6 responses to “Confessions of a former cop”

  1. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
    Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

    Thanks for the link.

    I am forced to agree that the system is rotten to the core – and no longer even safe for those who used to be ‘on top.’

    Reply
    1. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
      Lloyd Lofthouse

      Do you mean on top of the middle-class part of the pyramid of power? Working-class Americans, even the ones that are college-educated, that are not multi milionares and billionaires, were never “on top”.

      Reply
      1. Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt Avatar
        Alicia Butcher Ehrhardt

        Nope. I meant the ultra rich who are manipulating things daily so they get even richer. I don’t think they’re human any more.

      2. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
        Lloyd Lofthouse

        I agree. The ultra-rich have mutated like Dr. Jekyll became Mr. Hyde.

  2. rangerdon Avatar
    rangerdon

    Here’s the comment I posted on the site, Brandenberg’s, where the original post was published:

    This is clearly the time to wake Sir Bobby Peel again. At least match recent police actions and the babel of the Trumpanzees with Sir Robert’s 9 Principles of Policing:

    To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.

    To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.

    To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.

    To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.

    To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.

    To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.

    To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that the public are the police, the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

    To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary, of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.

    To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.

    As far as disarming the police – I can speak from personal experience and data to the truth that when the guns arrive peace leaves and folks get killed Sadly, too many police (or armed Park Rangers et al) view those guns as steel penises – manhood used only for good. Sadly, they’ve been raised on mythical Marion Morrison moves and dirty harry movies, and enter their job with fatal preconceptions.

    “Ranger” Don

    Reply
    1. Lloyd Lofthouse Avatar
      Lloyd Lofthouse

      For that to happen, the people that vote will have to vote the Republican Party and all neo-liberals in the Democratic Party out of power.

      Reply

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