I don’t know. I’m a pretty typical law-abiding citizen living a boring life and all my interactions with the police are negative. Aside from the really annoying ticketing to raise funds, I’ve had the following interactions:

1) had a cop yell at me and bystanders because someone not even with me said “excuse me sir” the cop yelled that he should say “excuse me officer” and the two cops next to him laughed

2) I was hit as a pedestrian and police said they were too busy to come take an accident report that I had to come to that station. I and the driver gave conflicting reports, there was no cop at the scene. Witnesses offered to testify but police wouldn’t contact them. When I went to the station there were lots of police sitting around.

3) I lived across from the police station and my car was broken into. It took four hours for the police to come over, investigate and prepare a report. Cop said next time I should call the private neighborhood security company that is all off duty copy’s getting overtime.

4) neighbor conflict with neighbor violating a judge’s order. City police said they wouldn’t do anything because they don’t enforce violations from those kids of judges per city policy. I asked what kind of police do, he said none. I’d have to call state police.

These aren’t huge issues and I’m still alive, etc. But I think it’s indicative of systemic problems where there’s not a good feedback loop to make sure cops are effective.

I’m grateful for police and they do do good work, but everyone I know has a litany of stories like this. And since police seem to do stuff like protest collection of data, routinely lose/not record body cam, and other indicators of a corrupt org; I think there’s need for serious police reform.

2) This doesn't appear to be a crime if it wasn't a hit-and-run, and generally police do not send cops to the scene for incidents like that. Also, not all cops are patrol officers. Many of them actually have desk jobs. Are you really getting mad at people for doing their jobs? How would you like it if someone came to your office, saw you on GitHub, and got mad at you for browsing the internet?

3) Four hours to investigate and prepare a report is ridiculously fast. So, there was a lot of latency, but it sounds like they were actually quite efficient once they arrived. Note: I'm not sure I believe the bit about calling a private security company, as that wouldn't make any sense; they couldn't have filed a police report for you.

4) Sounds right. Cops are bound by jurisdiction as a matter of law. If something isn't in their jurisdiction, they aren't allowed to do anything. This usually happens at county/city borders (where it's a case of figuring out which set of cops has jurisdiction to act), but it also applies to court orders. You haven't provided sufficient facts to say why state police would be enforcing a judicial order in this case.

For #2, I don’t care what kind of cop comes out, but there are traffic cops for this type. It’s a service that’s needed and only police can write police reports. So the police aren’t responsible, who is?

3) it was 4 hours to arrive across the street. The report was ready the next day. The private security company is off duty cops so they can do everything police can since they are police.

4) it is in their jurisdiction as it’s in their city and the crime occurred in their city, they just don’t enforce it unless requested by some outside party (like the state court). The state police don’t respond to minor issues like contempt. So again, who should handle this issue.

My point is that police don’t do what is needed. And the bit about being busy and underfunded is hard to believe given the massive funds that go to police.

It’s worth high lifting the summarize pattern in your experiences.

Police unwilling to meet the basic needs of doing law enforcement. In each case you asked for obvious and basic effort at investigating crimes and they just opted out.

It begs the question what are they doing instead?

I dunno dawg. Whenever I’ve really needed police (when my tires got slashed, when a group of neighborhood kids kicked in my roommate’s windshield within full view of our CCTV, when I got randomly beat up on a bus by a homeless guy, when my gf and I were separating a weeping girl from her drunk and violent date) they’re either not there, or not at all helpful (and in that fourth case, it was 4 drunk bros and a taxi driver who saved my life).

But boy oh boy are police there when I don’t need them: Shutting down streets in Fell’s Point at 1AM so it’s harder for people to get cabs and get home safe, calling in a helicopter and dogs to “investigate” me and a few friends filming a project in college, threatening to book me over a +14mph speeding ticket then apologizing and saying “ya gotta understand, there was a murder in this town two years ago”.

The stuff I read about cops totally gels with my personal experience.

Lol. Get your house or car broken into, car stolen, etc. in the US and see how it goes for you. My last dealing with the police was waiting about 12 hours with my back window broken, unable to clean up, so someone could come by and "dust for prints" on the glass for 10 seconds.

There were 3 or 4 eyewitnesses who they never talked to and of course I never heard back.

Someone else I know had surveillance video of an unmarked tow truck with no plates picking her car up out of a garage. She had a hell of a time even getting a cop to watch the video, multiple phone calls to multiple layers of police over the course of a week or so. Never heard back.

Basically every time I’ve needed police for something - a break-in, a violent person at my work, a neighbor stealing things from me with video evidence, a stolen car, on and on - I file a report and then never hear from them again. I can’t figure out what 40% of my city’s budget is going toward exactly. They have a ton of military gear for what purpose I’m not sure, while our roads and infrastructure are falling apart. They get as much overtime as they want…to sit in their cars and not do anything apparently. They won’t do anything about car theft where I live because they’re mad at the city council. Literally a work stoppage, which nothing can be done about. I’m not sure how many millions of the city’s tax revenue has gone toward paying out lawsuits against police either. So basically, they cost me a bunch of money and aren’t providing a service for that money.

I've been harassed by the police far more than they've helped and I'm just a boring white guy office worker. One time I was assaulted by some drunk people at a fast food restaurant and the cops showed up 2 hours later and told me they weren't going to do anything about it. Didn't even want to see the video of the attack. Have you ever interacted with the police? Ever had a friend get sexually assaulted and seen how they get treated by the cops?

> Only people who never have to deal with the police say things like this.

> edit - people are responding with anecdotes of the police being unhelpful.

Which is it? You want to get pedantic about what is "suggested", make a comment about how "/Only/ people who never have to deal with the police say things like this", then people come out to show how they have had bad dealings with the police, and now words don't matter?

I suppose you're right. My comment was hyperbole.

The point I'm trying to make, which is not hyperbole, is that there are lots of people who basically rely on the police to keep the peace. If someone comes into the store where they work and starts pissing on the ground, or acting aggressively, or breaking things, or threatening people, they call the police.

These kind of interactions are common. They aren't visible to people (like me) whose only interactions with the police is occasionally reporting property crimes.

I’m not sure who would rely on cops in a situation like that, considering I’ve had remarkably similar things happen (or worse, like direct assault of a coworker) and the cops showed up maybe about half the time and usually hours and hours later. 4 hours minimum, to respond to a violent drunk person throwing racks of glassware at staff and punching a bartender. Then they showed up, said there was nothing they could do but take a statement, and left. Didn’t want to see the security footage, didn’t care that we had the guys name (and credit card) since we took his card to open a tab. This was far from the only time we “needed” police and they didn’t even do the bare minimum.

So at this point it's no longer just

> Only people who never have to deal with the police say things like this. Their only experience with policing is reading articles about how evil cops are.

but also people who have to deal with the police but never have any positive experiences with them.

Or to put it another way - people who have positive experiences with the police wouldn't ask if they ever do anything beneficial for society.

But somehow phrasing it that way makes it sound like these people are perhaps not so plentiful.

My car was stolen and I was told by the police they couldn’t do anything at all (even while I had real-time tracking). Only after my father in law, a retired LAPD homicide detective gave his friend at the station a call did they give us a ride to where my car had been abandoned.

The ride was in the back of a police SUV. I’m 6ft and it was in humane - extremely uncomfortable, extremely unsafe, I felt like an animal. If I had been 6ft5 it would have been genuinely hard to breath. I had to ask twice for them to wear a mask.

After dropping me off at my stolen and partially destroyed car, they talked briefly about lunch and then left, never to be heard from again. There was a large knife left in my car from the thief. No fingerprints taken or asked for.

And this is my experience as a home-owner with a powerful family friend on the inside. I have plenty of other stories from when I was single and poor.

Only wealthy white folks who haven’t dealt with the police would question the legitimacy of the OPs question.

Bullshit! It is you who have been coddled by police. Without any respect to color or background cops are the most hostile gang many people in most american cities have to avoid. "HN posters" you think you know anything about arbitrary posters' background just because they are on HN? The stuff you see on social is only a small sample of reality, reality is worse than that.

Don't you think the responses from folks who have dealt with them invalidate your first sentence entirely?

I was stopped at the age of 13 for birdwatching of all crimes. I was walking at sunrise with a small backpack and pair of binoculars. Got stopped by two Sheriff's deputies who had nothing better to do than jack me up. They got pissed that I had a small Swiss army knife. After showing them my backpack just had snacks/water and a birder's guide, they still took an hour to let me go. I'm sure tons of runaway kids have birdwatching gear as cover to fool the authorities. ACAB.

I have had many, let’s say tens, interactions with police. Several as the victim of crimes - including violent crimes.

I have had exactly one positive experience with one police officer, which I would characterize as that officer doing an acceptable job.

I have never seen compelling evidence of your last claim. But I have seen extensive evidence that shows the negative impact of we police, evidence which aligns closely with my experiences.

I've only called the police once in my life for help. It took them three or four days to send someone. It was not a life or death situation but it was very time sensitive.

Do you have any positive personal anecdotes you can share of interactions with the police?

I had a statie help push my disabled car to a safer spot then on his own come back about 15 minutes later to check on me and let me wait in the back of his cruiser for the tow truck. (It was below freezing outside.) I’ve seen them helping disabled and stranded motorists on the highway. I’ve had them stop and run emergency lights to protect us while I changed someone else’s tire on the shoulder. I live on a semi-confusing curve where we get an accident a year or so and the road is state-owned, so I see the state police response to help the affected drivers and pax. Even when the driver was clearly at fault, they’re professional and helpful.

Recreationally, I’ve played a lot of baseball and softball with cops; I end up hearing some of the good and bad socially there as well.

Are there dickheads who become cops? Hell yes! The profession probably specifically attracts some of them. Are all cops bastards? Not in my experience.

Edit to add: our college campus police had a phenomenal relationship with the campus community. If I had any kind of issue, I’d have had no qualms about asking them for help. That’s a bit of a “gimme” perhaps, perhaps they have an easier job in some ways, but they had earned the trust of the majority of the community in ways that the neighboring college police forces had clearly not.

> Are all cops bastards?

The problem is even the "good" cops protect the bad cops. If they aren't willing to prosecute cops for things like beating their wives, why do you think they're good?

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/police-...

I find it hard to believe there are many police forces that don't have several officers that are known to break protocol, laws, and do shitty things like beat their wives - but they all hide behind the blue shield.

I have never had a positive experience with a police officer in my life, and I grew up in the richest whitest suburb you can imagine. I don't think it's possible to be a good person and stay in the force, and I have heard horrible stories from former officers that quit due to disgust at what their coworkers bragged about.

I really, really want to be wrong about this. But the older I get the more data comes out that police officers are just horrible human beings.

That’s an excellent point. The “thin blue line” is a terrible problem and even what I think are good individual cops are reluctant to break it.

That's a good anecdote, thanks.

Yes, a number in a separate comment that I won't duplicate here.

While I have had some unpleasant experiences with some jackass cops (mostly when I was still a public defender), the majority of my experiences with the police have been them doing their jobs.

In fact, the number one complaint from the cops I interact with is all the jackasses that give the rest of them a bad image. (And before you ask why they don't do something about it, they can't, in the same way that most of the programmers on this board don't have the power to stop programmers at other companies from doing what they do.)

A positive personal story: I rear ended somebody a few years ago. It was at a right hand turn into a protected lane, so there was no reason for them to stop. I saw them start to go, then saw a kid running in the crosswalk and looked away. My car slowly rolled into their car until there was a minor collision. We both pulled over, but before getting out of the car the other driver opened the glove box and threw the contents everywhere and then got out clutching his head, saying, "oh my head, it hurts the collision was so violent". I called the cops and after a fairly short delay an officer came over and took a look.

The officer explained to the man that, as somebody trained in collision assessment, the damage to their vehicle indicated a less than 5 mph collision and that does not substantiate any physical damage to their person. I received a note from the officer with badge number and name should I need to contact her in the future.

After explaining this to the insurance company I never heard from them again.