Do you have any comments about the specifics of the Mercury News article? Are they making stuff up for clicks? You personally haven't seen your neighbors misbehaving, but it's not like they're just going to brag about it to you, are they?
Do you have any first-hand knowledge of police misbehaving?
You mean other than the time I got pulled over in some shithole town in NJ because that's just what the local police did there to raise revenue?
The Interstate used to end right at that point, it went down to a normal 4-lane road. The local pigs would have a car working that area, pulling people over. When they finished writing a ticket for one car, they'd get back on the road, going the other direction (they only worked about a 1 mile stretch). Within 30 seconds their lights would be flashing and they'd pull another car over.
I used to commute that stretch of road daily, so I saw this happen constantly. Constantly. Constantly. For years and years. Finally they finished the Interstate and bypassed the town.
This was the early 1980s. That's what used to happen in the open in NJ. Far worse were other shithole towns in NJ that had a reputation for having police control the stoplights as you went thru town. They'd flip the light red, pull you over, arrest you, take you to court right then. "What you got there now, Seth", said the judge to the arresting police officer. That one I heard second hand, from a friend of mine, a person I "actually knew". Nothing an on-the-spot fine payment couldn't take care of.
Simple petty graft. Done out in the open. For years. Just off an Interstate.
Experiences like that give the entire justice system a bad name. Everyone knows what's going on, nobody does anything about it, even if they're not personally profiting from the corruption.
I lived in NYC in 1970. Was the stuff documented by the Knapp Commission made up?
Was all of that stuff contemporaneously reported on TV and in the newspapers made up for ratings and circulation? Did I have to personally experience it before I was allowed to believe it?
Unfortunately, one bad interaction with police negates 100 good interactions. Just like one bad meal at a restaurant can negate the 100 good meals you've previously had there. That's simple human nature.
I am not aware of any bad behavior from any of them, and I am first-hand witness to good deeds done by them.
Do you have any first-hand knowledge of police misbehaving? I mean people you actually know?