the odd thing is i nave never met a police officer that was not a great person. I even have a friend that is a cop and he is genuinely an awesome guy.

I had a buddy of mine arrested as he was coming out of a warehouse he rented as a gym. Cops asked him what he was doing there, he said he rented the place and was just picking up his cell phone. They NEVER tried to even figure out if he was telling the truth, hand-cuffed him and commenced whoopin on him while he was handcuffed and threw him in jail for tresspassing and resisting arrest. Luckily he was handcuffed, because what they did not realize...he is a MMA (ameteur) fighter and would have really EDIT them up bad. He told the cops...take these off and lets see how bad the two of you are..they would not.

1 WARNING FOR PROFANITY. WATCH THE LANGUAGE. -Slash

Too many cops are corrupt. (I'm not saying all are, but any amount of corrupt cops is bad)

Most policemen I know are good people and do not abuse their power and/or authority. However, when you have people in a position like that, it only takes 1 bad seed to ruin your opinion of the rest of them. The other part of it is that authority in itself breeds a certain kind of disregard for the rules. That is unavoidable and unfortunately part of human nature.

If anyone is not familiar with the Stamford Prison Experiment, where a number of volunteer students signed up for a Psychology experiment and were split into groups of guards and prisoners, I recommend checking these out..
http://www.prisonexp.org/

or good old Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Though it was conducted in 1971, the lessons learned are universal about human nature.

Also, one of the things that Plato struggled with in "Republic". A class of people who could be immune to the pressures power brings.

So keep those things in mind when you are talking about people who are putting themselves in very dangerous situations all the time and to whom the same situation can be played out 100 times with minor drama, only to have someone pull a knife or gun that 100th time. That is stressful and difficult. It is also human nature for one bad experience to carry more weight than 10 good in our personal perspectives. That goes for each one of us as well as every policeman who may seem rude or abrupt that one time when dealing with you in a situation that to you seems harmless.

Witchywoman wrote:rofl... ummm my experience with the officers I have come into contact with, have nothing to do with them being abrupt or rude. To start off with, an ex-husband that was a deputy, was "lets just be polite and say" NOT a nice person. A Sheriff whom I had the displeasure of knowing, dealing in drugs, guns, and prostitution. A Border Patrol, dealing in drugs, guns, illegal alien trafficing... any way you get the picture, I could go on with at least 15 others that I know, and these are personally know to me. It is not necessarily just a one time run in. I respect an officer of the law that does his duty and does not let the position with a badge become his weapon against others.

Yikes!

Well I can easily say that the many I am friends with are nothing like that. However, I know of least one that fits the mold you are talking about. Fortunately, he retired. Unfortunately, he is running for Town Supervisor. Ironic? I wish. Those drawn to power and corruption are every bit as addicted as the sports athlete who can't hang 'em up way past his prime because the draw of the sport and all that it entails is too great.