Quote:
Originally Posted by kindlekitten
one of my best friends is a cop. I love her to pieces, I still distrust and dislike 90% of cops. one of the first things I ask myself when evaluating someone as a cop is; "why do you s'spose this person got into police work?" if *power tripping* even burbles, I figure there are issues
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KK, I'm terribly sorry about your burglary. Unfortunately, there are good and bad people in every profession. Sounds to me like you got a dud to respond to your call for service. And it bothers me, if for no other reason, than it black eyes us all. Cops are used to crime scenes all day long, for the victim it's something extra ordinary that does not happen every day. There's all sorts of emotions running through their head, and to have somebody respond and be "meh" sucks. As for not dusting for prints and all that, I wasn't there and don't know the first thing about your town.
For us, we handle at least a thousand burglaries a year, sometimes more. And I'll be honest, there are some times where it would be "useless" and I know it would be a lost cause and waste of time, but you don't tell somebody that. I've been around a while (in the profession around ten years, five with my current agency) and I still have this little thing inside of me that says don't be stupid. There are some agencies that don't even bother processing scenes. Some of them, for any property or violent crime a detective gets called out, and sometimes that detective does the processing. Hell, there are some big metro agencies that won't even respond out to your scene, they'll take it over the phone and be done with it.
There are some barney fife pd's out there, and those, for as safe as they are, are not places I'd want to live. Places where you get a job because your daddy knows somebody or something else do not usually result in highly qualified individuals working for you. The other big issue is morale, and it's one that affects every agency nationwide. City, County, and State governments are tightening belts and expect more for less, you can't get blood from a stone. And when you crush the morale of someone, it's like pissing in the wind. Service suffers, no matter what anybody thinks.
To distrust 90% of the officers you meet is a bad sign, and it makes me sad. I know it's not just you and there's hundreds of thousands of people that feel the same way you do. The war on crime is like the war on drugs, it's an uphill battle that we're losing. Are there cops on powertrips? Sure. Are there guys all roided out because they want to prove how big their dicks are? Definitely. Are we all like that, no.
I know why I do what I do, and I can assure you it's not to prove a point or be better than somebody. I'm no different than anybody else, well, I mean, I think I'm an alright guy, but you might think I'm (insert clever euphemism) but who am I to second guess?
I'm no armchair quarterback, but I know I would have at least gave it a valiant effort to try and find something, even if I knew there was nothing. Because there's always the slim chance that you might get lucky.
My last shift I spent a good 40 minutes processing a dry scene looking for something. She told me that a bunch of electronics and about $150 worth of change went missing. I knew there wasn't going to be anything, but I had the point of entry (kitchen window) and an attempt (sliding glass door) and had the possibility that somebody might have used the attic to gain access.
I prefer to treat everybody with respect until you prove to me that you're undeserving of such. IE/I'm nice until being nice isn't an option anymore, or you turn into a poopface and things go down hill from there.
But, that's just me. Even people on the streets tell me I'm too nice to walk a beat in the ghetto. *Shrug*
I'll send you a PM for future reference of some tips that I give people.