I'm saying, we hear about X bad cops.

There may indeed by Y good cops. I am not making any claim about the existence or non-existence of Y good cops (in fact, I've interacted with good cops, so if I was to make any claim at all, it's simply that they exist, and the effects they have on bad cops are unknown).

These Y good cops are either doing nothing to stop bad cops (and thus are ineffective at stopping bad cops; this may be simply because they are in different departments, and/or unaware of it if it's happening within the same one, and/or they may be powerless to stop it, etc etc), or they are effective at stopping Z bad cops (for a total number of X + Z bad cops, since X are still not being stopped).

Either of these situations is terrible, because either the good cops are not stopping bad cops from being bad, or they are, but there are enough bad cops that the good cops are unable to stop them all (and thus the numbers of bad cops are even higher than we hear about).

I'm not sure how else I can put that for you.

US police in general have a lot of issues and need to improve dramatically, but the stories about cases of bad behavior are not representative samples, even if you factor in the amount of bad behavior that goes undiscovered.

First of all, the statistics for police violence in America are so incredibly awful compared to the rest of the world that we have to wonder what's going on here. It's not the press reports that is killing innocent people, it's the police.

Secondly, my personal experience doesn't support the idea that most police are bending over backwards for the people. My scorecard:

- Really great help with a flat tire and a missing jack.

- Decent, professional interactions in a handful of traffic tickets and that kind of thing.

But on the other hand:

- I watched a friend get roughed up (not exactly beaten, but rough physical treatment) for no reason at all.

- Been cursed at and had my IDs thrown around by annoyed cop (I understand why he was annoyed, but it was the result of him misinterpreting the situation)

- I've had false evidence entered against me over a speeding ticket (to be fair, I was guilty, but the actual evidence offered was fabricated)

- At about 13 y.o., in a market with a friend, and some bigger kids were physically bullying us. We turned to a police officer saying "those kids are trying to hurt us". The reply from the cop was, "better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".

It's impossible to quantify, but my experience shows me that there's a really large proportion of bad cops.

That's the reality for a huge amount of people.

Bad cops are extremely rarely seriously punished, and its ever rarer for other cops to finger them for it.

- I've been hassled and cursed at by an officer.

- I've watched a friend who was doing nothing wrong be roughed up by an officer.

- I've had police give false evidence against me on a traffic citation.

- As a child being physically bullied, a friend and I went to a cop for help. When we told the cop that these other kids were trying to beat us up, the reply was "you'd better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".

So while it's true that not all cops are bad, my personal experience shows me that the bad seeds aren't all that rare.

A really significant portion of my "official" interactions with police have been negative. I've listed these here before:

- I watched a friend being roughed up by cops. (not beaten, but physically pushed around) for absolutely no reason.

- I've had evidence of a traffic violation fabricated against me. (full disclosure: I was guilty, but that doesn't excuse lying about evidence)

- I've had police at a traffic stop curse at me and throw my documents. (I understand why he felt this way, but it was due to him making assumptions, starting with a belligerent attitude, and misreading the situation)

- Some older kids were physically bullying me and a friend. We went to a cop for help, and the extent of his aid was to say to us "better watch out, they'll probably hit you again".

Given the limited amount of interaction people normally have with police, the number of times this has happened to me says that I'm either a lightning rod for lousy cops, or the problem is more than just a few isolated bad eggs.

anecdotal counter-evidence will not be taken as a valid argument, either - just because you know cops that haven't either harmed you or claim to not have harmed anyone unjustly doesn't make policing as a whole less morally reprehensible

It'd be interesting to see real numbers, but I suspect officers on the beat get the short end of that stick.

I've dealt with lots of cops for minor stuff (trespassing, traffic infractions, crashed parties), and have only had a bad experience (turned out fine anyway) once. I have several relatives who have been in and out of the system, and from my point of view, they were probably treated more fairly than they deserved. I get that that is not everyone's experience, but it makes me skeptical that the problem is somehow grand and structural and not just "some people are assholes."

"I'm glad I had that run in with a police officer today"

"I bet this situation would be improved with a police officer"

"I want to go talk to that police officer"

"That police officer handled this situation optimally"

"I have a problem that the police will solve"

The expectations of performance are different between a police officer and a sys admin. It may happen that a sys admin makes a mistake causing systems to go down. Coworkers might be involved in the cleanup and pull an all nighter to recover the systems. Immediately after the incident there will be changes to process and responsibilities to minimize the likelihood of a similar event from happening. Sometimes people are fired. Sometimes people are demoted. Sometimes management is held responsible. Sometimes there is retraining.

Policing does not take any such corrective actions. Individual officers have the protection of powerful unions which hold all officers equal regardless of their performance and efficacy. Sergeants and captains can't correct the actions of the officers under their responsibility without facing repercussions from union representatives. Management becomes damage control and officers regress to the lowest mean because that is what makes their job easiest.

I think there is a lot of blame to go around. I blame our society for allowing this to continue for so long without demanding change from public representatives. I blame our elected officials for not changing laws to reflect our current reality. I blame police unions for protecting bad officers. I blame police department management for not attempting to deal with bad officers and enabling poor policing. Lastly I blame individual officers who should know better but most likely are not incentivized to change their behavior.

You'll note that most people angrily report their bad incidents with cops; when they're doing their job it goes unremarked. Not too far off from good IT support.

I can give anecdotes about friends who are cops that risked their lives to save strangers, even the bad guys. I know more than 1 cop who arrested a guy, and had the suspects family thank them for how they saved their life in the process.

I can also bring up anecdotes about how people who were so passionate about security were also criminals hiding criminal deeds. I could assume, and assert, that since I've personally seen people use their phones' security to hide evidence of murder, and infant rape, that all people who care about their phones' security are the same.

But that'd be a disservice. It'd be a disservice to those who legitimately care about security for legitimate reasons, because freedom is important, and fragile. It'd be a disservice to others who aren't sold on either side of the discussion. And it'd be a disservice to myself in that it makes me seem very narrow minded and narrow viewed. Its letting fear overcome observation.

There are 700,000 cops in America alone. Undoubtedly some are unqualified garbage. Some are malicious monsters. Some are believe the ends justify the means. Some are paragons of truth and justice. Some aren't malicious, or dumb, but only care about their careers and are shortsighted with all else. We can't make sweeping statements either way, it does nothing to help.

There have undoubtedly been cases of cops using rubber hose decryption. There have been warrants falsified intentionally and unintentionally.

But cops wanting to be able to execute search warrants on phones isn't as simple as "We want more power, more control". There are countless legitimate cases of human trafficking, murder, and sadly worse. We, as a society, have to figure this stuff out. We have to find the balance between "Give us all your secrets" and "Do whatever you want without question".

But we can't have this conversation to find the balance, until we admit that we are on a scale.

You cited five pleasant events, two where you were suspected of doing something wrong and three which are abuses of power. A considerable amount of your interactions with the police were abusive. So clearly there is a big, systemic problem ehre.

If this is so common, why is nothing being done about it? Is there really no accountability at all? Nobody checking to see if cops are playing by the rules?

I liked to believe that despite all the awful news about police behaviour, it was still only a few bad apples. But if it's standard practice at every precinct, are there actually any good cops left?

These are not "decent people".