Confessions of a Bastard Cop

[AutumnW]

This deserves its own thread. Everybody should read it before forming strong opinions about protesting against cops. It took a lot of guts and self examination for this former cop to step forward and post it!

Cops actively practice exclusionary politics-- by limiting their violence to those who are black or Muslim, mentally unstable...That's about as exclusionary as you can get. This isn't about snowflakes and safe spaces, its about real brute force and violence in the real world.

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confess...p-bb14d17bc759

[AutumnW]

Cut and Paste from the Article

"I was a police officer for nearly ten years and I was a bastard. We all were.

This essay has been kicking around in my head for years now and I’ve never felt confident enough to write it. It’s a time in my life I’m ashamed of. It’s a time that I hurt people and, through inaction, allowed others to be hurt. It’s a time that I acted as a violent agent of capitalism and white supremacy. Under the guise of public safety, I personally ruined people’s lives but in so doing, made the public no safer… so did the family members and close friends of mine who also bore the badge alongside me.

But enough is enough.

The reforms aren’t working. Incrementalism isn’t happening. Unarmed Black, indigenous, and people of color are being killed by cops in the streets and the police are savagely attacking the people protesting these murders.

American policing is a thick blue tumor strangling the life from our communities and if you don’t believe it when the poor and the marginalized say it, if you don’t believe it when you see cops across the country shooting journalists with less-lethal bullets and caustic chemicals, maybe you’ll believe it when you hear it straight from the pig’s mouth.

WHY AM I WRITING THIS

As someone who went through the training, hiring, and socialization of a career in law enforcement, I wanted to give a first-hand account of why I believe police officers are the way they are. Not to excuse their behavior, but to explain it and to indict the structures that perpetuate it.

I believe that if everyone understood how we’re trained and brought up in the profession, it would inform the demands our communities should be making of a new way of community safety. If I tell you how we were made, I hope it will empower you to unmake us.

One of the other reasons I’ve struggled to write this essay is that I don’t want to center the conversation on myself and my big salty boo-hoo feelings about my bad choices. It’s a toxic white impulse to see atrocities and think “How can I make this about me?” So, I hope you’ll take me at my word that this account isn’t meant to highlight me, but rather the hundred thousand of me in every city in the country. It’s about the structure that made me (that I chose to pollute myself with) and it’s my meager contribution to the cause of radical justice.

YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS

I was a police officer in a major metropolitan area in California with a predominantly poor, non-white population (with a large proportion of first-generation immigrants). One night during briefing, our watch commander told us that the city council had requested a new zero tolerance policy. Against murderers, drug dealers, or child predators?

No, against homeless people collecting cans from recycling bins.

See, the city had some kickback deal with the waste management company where waste management got paid by the government for our expected tonnage of recycling. When homeless people “stole” that recycling from the waste management company, they were putting that cheaper contract in peril. So, we were to arrest as many recyclers as we could find.

Even for me, this was a stupid policy and I promptly blew Sarge off. But a few hours later, Sarge called me over to assist him. He was detaining a 70 year old immigrant who spoke no English, who he’d seen picking a coke can out of a trash bin. He ordered me to arrest her for stealing trash. I said, “Sarge, c’mon, she’s an old lady.” He said, “I don’t give a ****. Hook her up, that’s an order.” And… I did. She cried the entire way to the station and all through the booking process. I couldn’t even comfort her because I didn’t speak Spanish. I felt disgusting but I was ordered to make this arrest and I wasn’t willing to lose my job for her.

If you’re tempted to feel sympathy for me, don’t. I used to happily hassle the homeless under other circumstances. I researched obscure penal codes so I could arrest people in homeless encampments for lesser known crimes like “remaining too close to railroad property” (369i of the California Penal Code). I used to call it “planting warrant seeds” since I knew they wouldn’t make their court dates and we could arrest them again and again for warrant violations.

We used to have informal contests for who could cite or arrest someone for the weirdest law. DUI on a bicycle, non-regulation number of brooms on your tow truck (27700(a)(1) of the California Vehicle Code)… **** like that. For me, police work was a logic puzzle for arresting people, regardless of their actual threat to the community. As ashamed as I am to admit it, it needs to be said: stripping people of their freedom felt like a game to me for many years.

I know what you’re going to ask: did I ever plant drugs? Did I ever plant a gun on someone? Did I ever make a false arrest or file a false report? Believe it or not, the answer is no. Cheating was no fun, I liked to get my stats the “legitimate” way. But I knew officers who kept a little baggie of whatever or maybe a pocket knife that was a little too big in their war bags (yeah, we called our dufflebags “war bags”…). Did I ever tell anybody about it? No I did not. Did I ever confess my suspicions when cocaine suddenly showed up in a gang member’s jacket? No I did not.

In fact, let me tell you about an extremely formative experience: in my police academy class, we had a clique of around six trainees who routinely bullied and harassed other students: intentionally scuffing another trainee’s shoes to get them in trouble during inspection, sexually harassing female trainees, cracking racist jokes, and so on. Every quarter, we were to write anonymous evaluations of our squadmates. I wrote scathing accounts of their behavior, thinking I was helping keep bad apples out of law enforcement and believing I would be protected. Instead, the academy staff read my complaints to them out loud and outed me to them and never punished them, causing me to get harassed for the rest of my academy class. That’s how I learned that even police leadership hates rats. That’s why no one is “changing things from the inside.” They can’t, the structure won’t allow it.

And that’s the point of what I’m telling you. Whether you were my sergeant, legally harassing an old woman, me, legally harassing our residents, my fellow trainees bullying the rest of us, or “the bad apples” illegally harassing “****bags”, we were all in it together. I knew cops that pulled women over to flirt with them. I knew cops who would pepper spray sleeping bags so that homeless people would have to throw them away. I knew cops that intentionally provoked anger in suspects so they could claim they were assaulted. I was particularly good at winding people up verbally until they lashed out so I could fight them. Nobody spoke out. Nobody stood up. Nobody betrayed the code.

None of us protected the people (you) from bad cops."

[Patient]

No surprise there for me.

A couple times I was in a position where the police were needed and both times they did nothing.

A couple times when they were not needed, that is when they acted worse.

And I am not black or Muslim.

[AuCo]

Posted by AutumnW (here)
This deserves its own thread. Everybody should read it before forming strong opinions about protesting against cops. It took a lot of guts and self examination for this former cop to step forward and post it!

Cops actively practice exclusionary politics-- by limiting their violence to those who are black or Muslim, mentally unstable...That's about as exclusionary as you can get. This isn't about snowflakes and safe spaces, its about real brute force and violence in the real world.

https://medium.com/@OfcrACab/confess...p-bb14d17bc759

I think the writer should change "YES, ALL COPS ARE BASTARDS" to "YES, ALL COPS I KNOW OF ARE BASTARDS" because the cops we know of are just decent fellow men.

[AutumnW]

AuCo, Do you think that the writer was considered a great guy by his friends outside of the force? You can't evaluate someone's work unless you work with them. Please read the whole article. Okay? The other thing to consider is where they are policing. I think it's Target who made the point that it's where these guys are policing that is important too--how they are trained. Every major city would have militarized police forces, with all the military toys, and extreme macho, exclusionary focus. "Us against the Scum."

¤=[Post Update]=¤

Posted by Patient (here)
No surprise there for me.

A couple times I was in a position where the police were needed and both times they did nothing.

A couple times when they were not needed, that is when they acted worse.

And I am not black or Muslim.

Thanks for your input, Patient. If you want to elaborate, feel free.

[TomKat]

The recent "defund police" campaign appears to be part of a Soros project that started last year, to take over local police departments:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...stroy-america/

[AutumnW]

What does "defunding the police" actually mean?


As thousands of protesters across the country have gathered to demand justice for George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and other black people killed by the police, a related rallying cry has gained momentum: defund the police. It’s an idea that’s been popular among activists and critics of the criminal-justice system for decades. In the past two weeks, though, it’s gained unprecedented support — and national media attention. Proponents of defunding argue that incremental police reform has failed. A better solution, they argue, would be to more effectively address underlying factors that contribute to crime, like poverty and homelessness; this would be achieved by cutting police forces’ often-astronomical budgets on a city level and reallocating those funds toward social services, such as housing and youth services.

Some critics have dismissed defunding the police as a left-wing fantasy, but the concept is quickly gaining mainstream recognition. Perhaps most notably: On June 7, the City Council of Minneapolis announced its intent to disband the city’s police department with a vetoproof majority and replace it with “a holistic model of public safety that actually keeps us safe.”

https://www.thecut.com/2020/06/what-...explained.html

[Gracy]

It's quite the good read, but with things like this I would really like to see some sort of verification as to if the writer really is, who he says he is.

Lots of comments after the story of people saying he should go to places like The Intercept, another said they had already forwarded his story to Gayle King, I think these are very good ideas. Really it's actually quite generic, he's not ratting anyone out, hell he's not even a cop any more, so it's not like he would instantly become a hot target.

[Fellow Aspirant]

Here's a link to an article in Politico ...

https://www.politico.com/news/magazi...reforms-313750

about the reform of the police force in Camden, New Jersey, about ten years ago. Overall, it has been largely successful in providing the citizens with a police force that they are satisfied with, as opposed to the problem-ridden organization that they had had so much trouble with. Camden's experience is now coming under closer scrutiny as more and more jurisdictions look to reforming their own forces.

It's a good read. And guess what - there is no mention of George S*r*s anywhere. There's a George, all right, but not the evil demon one, he who should not be named by any proper thinking conspiratorialist. It's as if the citizens came up with the plan on their own. Out of desperation, mind you, but on their own.

excerpt

Violent crime had been high in the city for decades, but it was about to get worse, because the police department was broke. In 2010, Camden, faced with a $14 million budget deficit, laid off half of its police force. Arrests in 2011 fell to almost half of what they had been just two years earlier, and burglaries increased by 65 percent. The murder rate skyrocketed. Eventually, residents largely gave up on calling police for minor crimes.
POLITICO Dispatch: June 12

POLITICO’s Katherine Landergan explains the complicated history of how Camden dismantled and rebuilt its police department — and what other cities can learn.
Subscribe on Apple Podcasts | Subscribe on Google Podcasts

On top of that, the police department had a reputation for bad cops. Of the 37 excessive use of force complaints levied in 2011, not one had been “sustained,” or clearly proven or disproven, which raised serious red flags about accountability with the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New Jersey at the time. In 2010, five officers in the department were charged with evidence planting, fabrication and perjury. Later, state and federal courts would go on to overturn the convictions of 88 people who had been arrested and charged by those officers.

The idea for dissolving the Camden police force came amid the backdrop of a push by both Governor Christie and Democratic state lawmakers to regionalize city and town services in a new era of government austerity. State Sen. Don Norcross, Camden County Freeholder Lou Cappelli and Mayor Dana Redd started promoting the idea of dissolving the Camden police force and creating a new county-led force to replace it. The plan also had the support of George Norcross, an insurance executive and Democratic power broker in southern New Jersey (and brother of Don), and Christie.

B

[AutumnW]

Posted by Gracy May (here)
It's quite the good read, but with things like this I would really like to see some sort of verification as to if the writer really is, who he says he is.

Lots of comments after the story of people saying he should go to places like The Intercept, another said they had already forwarded his story to Gayle King, I think these are very good ideas. Really it's actually quite generic, he's not ratting anyone out, hell he's not even a cop any more, so it's not like he would instantly become a hot target.

Gracy, if he wasn't anonymous, and the article gained traction, I don't see why he wouldn't become a target. The thinking might be that if he is willing to out himself, he might be willing to out those he worked with. Just an idea. It IS much better to be completely transparent, generally speaking though...totally agree.

[indigopete]

What happened to these guys ?

Or him ?



Or them ?

[Gracy]

Posted by AutumnW (here)

Posted by Gracy May (here)
It's quite the good read, but with things like this I would really like to see some sort of verification as to if the writer really is, who he says he is.

Lots of comments after the story of people saying he should go to places like The Intercept, another said they had already forwarded his story to Gayle King, I think these are very good ideas. Really it's actually quite generic, he's not ratting anyone out, hell he's not even a cop any more, so it's not like he would instantly become a hot target.

Gracy, if he wasn't anonymous, and the article gained traction, I don't see why he wouldn't become a target. The thinking might be that if he is willing to out himself, he might be willing to out those he worked with. Just an idea. It IS much better to be completely transparent, generally speaking though...totally agree.

I hear ya AutumnW, but I still have to question authenticity whether I happen to agree with it or not. We probably all know of former Baltimore cop Michael Wood by now, and how he has been out there speaking to his experience anywhere from The Young Turks, to Alex Jones, on systemic problems that are inherent in the current system.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=4HyKlFUMBiA

He's right out there with who he is, as opposed to our "Officer A. Cab", who may be the real deal, but he may also just be a blogger who knows a lot about policing in America in general, and writing a good story to fit with his #defundthepolice mindset through the eyes of a fictional cop in his head.

An example from what he wrote: The following to me are not the words of an ex cop with regret, but of an activist with very clear objectives making their point through the eyes of a cop.

Wrestle with this for a minute: if all of someone’s material needs were met and all the members of their community were fed, clothed, housed, and dignified, why would they need to join a gang? Why would they need to risk their lives selling drugs or breaking into buildings? If mental healthcare was free and was not stigmatized, how many lives would that save?

Would there still be a few bad actors in the world? Sure, probably. What’s my solution for them, you’re no doubt asking. I’ll tell you what: generational poverty, food insecurity, houselessness, and for-profit medical care are all problems that can be solved in our lifetimes by rejecting the dehumanizing meat grinder of capitalism and white supremacy. Once that’s done, we can work on the edge cases together, with clearer hearts not clouded by a corrupt system.

I could very well be wrong here, and I hope that I am, but until I see some skin in the game I'm on the side of some # red flags here.

[Valerie Villars]

I actually met the author of "The Choir Boys" during the strange experiences of 2013 and when I told him I love books, he gave me a copy of his personal stash. It was written in 1977 and according to the author's photo, it was indeed him, though much older. I have the hardback.

https://www.amazon.com/Choirboys-Nov.../dp/0385341601

Each wears his cynicism like a bulletproof jockstrap—each has his horror story, his bad dream, his nightshriek. He is afraid of his friends—he is afraid of himself.”—New York Times

Partners in the Los Angeles Police Department, they’re haunted by terrifying dark secrets of the nightwatch–shared predawn drink and sex sessions they call choir practice.

He told me it was semi autobiographical and the unspoken message was that the police were no angels.

I'm only relaying what his general message to me was.

[Fellow Aspirant]

re: The following to me are not the words of an ex cop with regret, but of an activist with very clear objectives making their point through the eyes of a cop.

Gracy May

You use the word activist like it is a bad thing. I am dismayed that more and more commonly, it is used as a pejorative by those on the right, like "humanist" or even "liberal". It's time we thought more clearly about our social/political issues. This means, among other things, that we stop thinking on 'auto-pilot', using terms in ways that media and politicians have decided to use them. Activists are those who have decided to engage with society to try to change something. As such, we should all be activists, if we are really passionate about wanting change. This ex-cop is clearly passionate about wanting change in policing. His very essay, then, obviously puts him into the 'activist' category. That should not automatically make him suspicious. We should pay attention to what he is saying.

B

[shaberon]

People will keep joining gangs or mafias even with basic needs met.

"Confessions" is realistic enough, a guy that didn't do anything all that extreme, but conformed to the peer pressure.

It is a wolfpack mentality you might find at a regular job, or anywhere. I would not doubt it is true in some places in terms of the police. Not all. The squad of regular guys is going to tend to produce more regular ones, and the places where this mentality is established will make worse ones. I can't personally define which is which, but, both kinds are true, so I would think "all" might be reasonably fitting, in certain particular places.

He didn't specifically explain it, but, "arrest quota" is a new-ish concept, supposedly a performance driver--but not necessarily accurate or fair.

[Gracy]

Posted by Gracy May (here)
The following to me are not the words of an ex cop with regret, but of an activist with very clear objectives making their point through the eyes of a cop.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
You use the word activist like it is a bad thing.

Nah. By no means do I think of "activist" as bad, no more I think of "police" as bad. Each has their role so long as they're not being destructive in doing so.

If I suspect the writer might well be a civil rights activist, stating his case through the eyes of a fictitious ex cop, then I don't what better term to describe him as, but an activist. That's it, nothing more to it.

Posted by Fellow Aspirant (here)
I am dismayed that more and more commonly, it is used as a pejorative by those on the right, like "humanist" or even "liberal".

Ha! How refreshing being assumed to be on the right here for a change, as I'm fairly certain it's usually the other way around.

[Billy Vasiliadis]

Whether this was written by an ex cop or not, I honestly can't help but agree with much of what the writer has expressed and is suggesting. At the very least it is a very well written and clear expression of where many currently stand on the issue.

[Bill Ryan]

I read the article carefully and with great interest. It was clear to me that this was a genuine ex-cop. There were many tells.

Then, as is often important with such things, I then carefully read the comments.

All except one praised the writer, and included in them were a number of literary agents asking him to write a book. (And one was a movie scriptwriter.)

This is the one single comment that was deeply critical. Giving his name as "Steve Rogers", we can assume that he was also anonymous.

• https://medium.com/@stevenqrogers177...d-59a73d32ca93

You’re an absolute coward, of the worst kind. I’m an active duty police officer and I can read between the lines of what you’ve written. Surprisingly, I don’t disagree with everything you’ve written, but you are despicable, and I hope someone investigates this to discover your true identity to explore prosecuting you for your behavior. Care to explain why you’re no longer a police officer? I would venture to guess its because you were either terminated, or you resigned in lieu of termination. You are a perfect example of why background investigations should never be rushed, nor done by unqualified personnel. By your own admissions, you were a sociopath while doing this job. You probably never should have been a police officer to begin with and your admissions confirm this. You were, and probably still are one of the Derek Chauvin’s of the world.

You clearly have a hidden agenda, and its not for the greater good of mankind. I will pen my own rebuttal to your expose here in due time, but for now I’ll address some of the most glaring concerns I have.

As mentioned before, why did you leave? You clearly did not have the strength and fortitude to air your concerns while you were still employed.. and DO NOT use the excuse that you were unable to… You could have penned anonymous letters to your city council, the police commission, independent office of the police auditor, etc. But you didn’t, and this is some kind of vindication for you. Sick. You think this absolves your conscience of guilt?

You’re clearly embellishing and glorifying your experience. If you worked in a small enough agency to be concerned with theft of recyclables, you were not also out arresting murderers. If you never on-viewed any major crimes, and you never protected the general public from the real predators of society, but you spent your time playing games trying to arrest people for obscure crimes, you clearly are and were a coward. I think you were terminated for misconduct, and this is your retribution and catharsis rolled into one.

How long ago were you a cop? I would venture to guess it was close to a decade ago at minimum, and your department did not utilize body worn cameras. The culture you’ve described is not the culture employed in my large department in this modern age. Not even close. I can definitively tell you that your experiences are not what is commonplace in modern law enforcement. There’s no such thing as an “unaccountable license to kill” in this profession.. it’s sickening and deplorable that you would even use such a phrase.

Now, where I surprisingly agree with you —

There are a lot of bad apples roaming around in many agencies, and they’re protected in favor of ousting them, with too many protections on the side of the officer. Most of these officers quickly receive an indelible reputation, and they’re usually pushed into obscurity, however they should not be allowed to remain in the profession at any level. I would venture to say the split is in the neighborhood of a 90/10~ 95/5, with the smaller numbers being the bad apples. I truly believe a lot of agencies are afraid to out their bad apples because this would now be public record and could result in harsh back-lash from any number of angles.

Once again, “Officer Acab”, you’re a despicable coward, and I hope you nothing but the worst. You’re clearly a subscriber to the radical ideas of the left and you’ve been severely indoctrinated after abandoning a profession where you LITERALLY had the power to be the change you’re prescribing. That is despicable.

[Gemma13]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
I read the article carefully and with great interest. It was clear to me that this was a genuine ex-cop. There were many tells.

Then, as is often important with such things, I then carefully read the comments.

All except one praised the writer, and included in them were a number of literary agents asking him to write a book. (And one was a movie scriptwriter.)

This is the one single comment that was deeply critical. Giving his name as "Steve Rogers", we can assume that he was also anonymous.

• https://medium.com/@stevenqrogers177...d-59a73d32ca93

You’re an absolute coward, of the worst kind. I’m an active duty police officer and I can read between the lines of what you’ve written. Surprisingly, I don’t disagree with everything you’ve written, but you are despicable, and I hope someone investigates this to discover your true identity to explore prosecuting you for your behavior. Care to explain why you’re no longer a police officer? I would venture to guess its because you were either terminated, or you resigned in lieu of termination. You are a perfect example of why background investigations should never be rushed, nor done by unqualified personnel. By your own admissions, you were a sociopath while doing this job. You probably never should have been a police officer to begin with and your admissions confirm this. You were, and probably still are one of the Derek Chauvin’s of the world.

You clearly have a hidden agenda, and its not for the greater good of mankind. I will pen my own rebuttal to your expose here in due time, but for now I’ll address some of the most glaring concerns I have.

As mentioned before, why did you leave? You clearly did not have the strength and fortitude to air your concerns while you were still employed.. and DO NOT use the excuse that you were unable to… You could have penned anonymous letters to your city council, the police commission, independent office of the police auditor, etc. But you didn’t, and this is some kind of vindication for you. Sick. You think this absolves your conscience of guilt?

You’re clearly embellishing and glorifying your experience. If you worked in a small enough agency to be concerned with theft of recyclables, you were not also out arresting murderers. If you never on-viewed any major crimes, and you never protected the general public from the real predators of society, but you spent your time playing games trying to arrest people for obscure crimes, you clearly are and were a coward. I think you were terminated for misconduct, and this is your retribution and catharsis rolled into one.

How long ago were you a cop? I would venture to guess it was close to a decade ago at minimum, and your department did not utilize body worn cameras. The culture you’ve described is not the culture employed in my large department in this modern age. Not even close. I can definitively tell you that your experiences are not what is commonplace in modern law enforcement. There’s no such thing as an “unaccountable license to kill” in this profession.. it’s sickening and deplorable that you would even use such a phrase.

Now, where I surprisingly agree with you —

There are a lot of bad apples roaming around in many agencies, and they’re protected in favor of ousting them, with too many protections on the side of the officer. Most of these officers quickly receive an indelible reputation, and they’re usually pushed into obscurity, however they should not be allowed to remain in the profession at any level. I would venture to say the split is in the neighborhood of a 90/10~ 95/5, with the smaller numbers being the bad apples. I truly believe a lot of agencies are afraid to out their bad apples because this would now be public record and could result in harsh back-lash from any number of angles.

Once again, “Officer Acab”, you’re a despicable coward, and I hope you nothing but the worst. You’re clearly a subscriber to the radical ideas of the left and you’ve been severely indoctrinated after abandoning a profession where you LITERALLY had the power to be the change you’re prescribing. That is despicable.

Glad someone called him out for what he is. Dirty cop trying to be a hero by condemning good cops. Typical sociopathic, narcissistic, psychopathic behaviour.