linhsy
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How the Police Are Able to Continually Harass the Public
(Or, Never Ask a Question of a Police Officer Who Majored in Statistics.)
Recently, California ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer
exchange) where the topic was "Policing the Community." One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question: "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?" From the "other side" (the law
enforcement side) a cool cop with a sense of humor replied:
It is not easy. In California we average one cop for every 2,000 people.
About 60% of those cops are on patrol, where we do most of the
harassing. One-fifth of that 60% are on duty at any given moment and
are available for harassing people. So, one cop is responsible for harassing about 10,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial, business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 20,000 or more people each day. A ten-hour shift runs 36,000
seconds. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and three-fourths
of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not
an easy task. Most cops are not up to it, day in and day out. It is just too
tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people
which we harass.
They are as follows:
PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to
focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase we use. Then we come out and give special harassment.
Another popular one on a weeknight is, "The kids next door are having aloud party."
CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars blasting music, cars with expired registration stickers and the like. It is lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light.
Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, are driving drunk, or they have an outstanding warrant.
RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer.
Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.
CODES: When you can think of nothing else to do, there are books that give ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Codes"-Penal, Vehicle, Health
and Safety, Business and, Professional Codes, to name a few. They spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the code,
you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these
listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy smash a car window.
Well, the code says that is not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a pretty cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well.
We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because the good citizens who pay the tab actually
like the fact that we keep the streets safe for them. Next time you are in my town, give me a single finger wave. That will be a signal that you wish for me to take a little closer look at you, and then maybe I'll find a reason to harass YOU.
(Or, Never Ask a Question of a Police Officer Who Majored in Statistics.)
Recently, California ran an e-mail forum (a question and answer
exchange) where the topic was "Policing the Community." One of the civilian e-mail participants posed the following question: "I would like to know how it is possible for police officers to continually harass people and get away with it?" From the "other side" (the law
enforcement side) a cool cop with a sense of humor replied:
It is not easy. In California we average one cop for every 2,000 people.
About 60% of those cops are on patrol, where we do most of the
harassing. One-fifth of that 60% are on duty at any given moment and
are available for harassing people. So, one cop is responsible for harassing about 10,000 residents. When you toss in the commercial, business and tourist locations that attract people from other areas, sometimes you have a situation where a single cop is responsible for harassing 20,000 or more people each day. A ten-hour shift runs 36,000
seconds. This gives a cop one second to harass a person, and three-fourths
of a second to eat a donut AND then find a new person to harass. This is not
an easy task. Most cops are not up to it, day in and day out. It is just too
tiring. What we do is utilize some tools to help us narrow down those people
which we harass.
They are as follows:
PHONE: People will call us up and point out things that cause us to
focus on a person for special harassment. "My neighbor is beating his wife" is a code phrase we use. Then we come out and give special harassment.
Another popular one on a weeknight is, "The kids next door are having aloud party."
CARS: We have special cops assigned to harass people who drive. They like to harass the drivers of fast cars, cars blasting music, cars with expired registration stickers and the like. It is lots of fun when you pick them out of traffic for nothing more obvious than running a red light.
Sometimes you get to really heap the harassment on when you find they have drugs in the car, are driving drunk, or they have an outstanding warrant.
RUNNERS: Some people take off running just at the sight of a police officer.
Nothing is quite as satisfying as running after them like a beagle on the scent of a bunny. When you catch them you can harass them for hours.
CODES: When you can think of nothing else to do, there are books that give ideas for reasons to harass folks. They are called "Codes"-Penal, Vehicle, Health
and Safety, Business and, Professional Codes, to name a few. They spell out all sorts of things for which you can really mess with people. After you read the code,
you can just drive around for awhile until you find someone violating one of these
listed offenses and harass them. Just last week I saw a guy smash a car window.
Well, the code says that is not allowed. That meant I got permission to harass this guy. It is a pretty cool system that we have set up, and it works pretty well.
We seem to have a never-ending supply of folks to harass. And we get away with it. Why? Because the good citizens who pay the tab actually
like the fact that we keep the streets safe for them. Next time you are in my town, give me a single finger wave. That will be a signal that you wish for me to take a little closer look at you, and then maybe I'll find a reason to harass YOU.
