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You're deliberately only including state and local sworn officers. Complaints about police/agency conduct INCLUDE complaints about non-sworn law enforcement staff

Absolutely not. Let's go back to the report from 2010:

"From January 2010 through December 2010 the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project recorded 4,861 unique reports of police misconduct that involved 6,613 sworn law enforcement officers and 6,826 alleged victims."

So we're only talking about complaints against sworn law enforcement officers.

The DoD has it's own police, each branch of the military has police (with civilian arrest authority!), each has their own investigative agencies ... to say nothing of the police that work for everything from the TSA to ICE to the State Department to the officers of the Secret Service (and other Treasury-related activities, like the IRS - also with arrest powers). Hundreds of thousands more people that are "the police."

That's all fine, but we're talking about misconduct among local law enforcement officers. If you want to include TSA and ICE and the FBI and the Secret Service, we'll have to also find the statistics regarding misconduct complaints against them and add those into the mix.

https://www.policemisconduct.n...

So, perhaps the rate of misbehavior by police was low already,

I've found some statistics for 2010. I don't know if the rate of police misbehavior in DC has gone down since then, but it was pretty bad.

"4,861 – Unique reports of police misconduct tracked
6,613 – Number of sworn law enforcement officers involved (354 were agency leaders such as chiefs or sheriffs)
6,826 – Number of alleged victims involved
247 – Number of fatalities associated with tracked reports
$346,512,800 – Estimated amount spent on misconduct-related civil judgments and settlements excluding sealed settlements, court costs, and attorney fees."

https://www.policemisconduct.n...

Well, you're off by at least an order of magnitude, and likely a lot more. If you look at official police misconduct numbers for example here, you'll see that something around 1% of police officers are involved in serious complaints each year.

...

And keep in mind these are reported official cases of misconduct. Recent analyses have shown that lots of questionable actions taken by police while on duty are not prosecuted or investigated thoroughly

You're misusing the statistics and twisting them to fit your preconceived notions of how terrible police are. Around 1% get complaints, but that doesn't say how many are valid. The second paragraph quoted doesn't change that... in fact, it adds nothing to it... 10% could get complaints, it doesn't make 10% guilty of wrong doing.

As far as not talking to police, you're again missing context... if you're under arrest, then don't talk to police. Otherwise you're likely just being an asshole and obstructing justice. If you say something incriminating before being read your Miranda rights, it's inadmissible in court... and of course, you can only say something incriminating if you've actually done something wrong. If you haven't done anything wrong, there's no reason not to talk to police.

My father was a police officer for 20 years and somehow managed not to shoot any black people or violate anyone's rights. That's 99.9% of police officers.

Well, you're off by at least an order of magnitude, and likely a lot more. If you look at official police misconduct numbers for example here, you'll see that something around 1% of police officers are involved in serious complaints each year. Keep in mind that's an annual rate, so I don't know how that extrapolates to the percentage of police who engage in bad activity over an entire career, but it's undoubtedly somewhat higher (and could be a significant percentage of police). (To be fair -- if you read the stats here in detail, the rate of criminal activity among police is not significantly higher than that of the general population, but one would think that we should hold law enforcement to a somewhat higher standard in obeying the law....)

And keep in mind these are reported official cases of misconduct. Recent analyses have shown that lots of questionable actions taken by police while on duty are not prosecuted or investigated thoroughly -- or even reported: recent media analysis of fatal shootings by police, for example, suggest they are probably twice as common as the official reported number.

You add all these factors together, and I wouldn't be surprised if we're looking at figures closer to 10% or higher of police who engage in significant criminal misconduct.

I have a great deal of respect for "good cops" who put their lives on the line every day. If you dad was one of them, you should be proud. And most police do a good job. But there are also SIGNIFICANT numbers of police who commit crimes in the U.S. every year.

And the bad cops aren't 1 in 1000 (as your off-the-cuff stat suggests), they're definitely greater than 1 in 100, and factoring in recent stats, it's likely as many as 1 in 10 or more.

Also, we need to look at official criminal activity vs. more subtle forms of questionable actions, like intimidation in interrogations, etc. Those may not rise to a criminal level, but many, many police abuse their authority to various degrees. This is where GP has a point:

That's patently absurd.... "Don't talk to police" is for the people asking for trouble.

There are lawyers who advise that. In general, it seems like reasonable advice. Unless you are asking the police for help, you gain nothing from talking to them and can accidentally implicate yourself (even if you've actually done nothing wrong). Be polite. Provide ID if the situation warrants. Then ask to leave... politely. There are too many ways they have power and authority to screw you over, even if it doesn't rise to official "misconduct," so what's the benefit in taking the risk?

Hysteria, eh? Well, let's just drag a few facts out. Here we go:

o Straight-up misconduct

o Botched paramilitary police raid data

o Judge, jury and executioners in blue: The death penalty -- without a court

o Warrants "not required" data

o Seizure of property without warrants details

o $2.02 billion dollars in cash and property seizures for/in which no indictment was ever filed

o Other illegal horrors

Just a little information -- what we know -- showing our government at work, cavreader. Now, I don't know how you will characterize this information, but I know how I do: Directly and unequivocally indicative of a systemic breakdown of respect, regard, and understanding of liberty and justice that extends broadly across all areas of law enforcement.

Now, you want to talk nonsense about legal protections in a system where the vast majority of defendants are pressured into plea bargains against a completely uneven scale full of extra charges, almost certain financial ruin, threats of extended incarceration, and outright lies from the police and prosecutor, where the police don't have to defend anything in court -- and which can be, and at times have been, followed up by ex post facto laws increasing punishment after conviction -- fine. But don't expect me to take you seriously, because you obviously don't have even the slightest idea what you're talking about.

This creates the appearance that, if you do not buy the membership, you'll be stopped and shown absolutely no mercy

we give these people a monopoly on violence and expect what, exactly, Andy Taylor and Barney Fife?

No, that's beyond the pale.

No, that's exactly what they've evolved into. Today, they are armed and armored paramilitary who destroy innocent lives and maintain a culture of isolation and privilege.

Just for example... and then there is this...

There's your "most." And mind you, these are just the screwups that have come to light. For every one on that map, there are hundreds or thousands more where no one reports anything because to do so puts you on the police radar, the last place any self-aware citizen wants to be. The idealized view of police forces has for some time diverged greatly from the reality. I doubt you could find a single police department in the USA that isn't corrupt, holding the blue line, handing out favors, etc., and let me take care to include legislators, lawyers and judges in this condemnation. The system is just barely functional enough that it doesn't fall apart, and little more. As the previous posted said, if you do enter into this kind of public service with the idea to serve and protect, that attitude will be most thoroughly adjusted within a short span of time.

all of my family is in law enforcement, so i tend to agree with you. not saying there are not bad cops, i have just not met one.

What about all those cops captured on video abusing their authority, lying about the facts, committing crimes, etc.?

This comes under "Officers of the law, being from time to time exempt from statutes of the law, must be held to a higher standard than those who are under the law."

On the other side of the argument:

There are as of 2006, 683,396 full time state, city, university and college, metropolitan and non-metropolitan county, and other law enforcement officers in the United States. There are approx. 120,000 full time law enforcement personnel working for the federal government adding up to a total number of 800,000 law enforcement personnel in the U.S.

--answers.com

How many cases of cops abusing their authority etc. have we seen?
http://www.policemisconduct.net/2010-q2-npmsrp-national-police-misconduct-statistical-report/
3,240 Law enforcement officers cited in recorded police misconduct reports in first half of 2010.

So, assuming that number is representative, we have approximately 0.8% of all police officers cited in misconduct cases per year. Note that this is *cited* meaning a complaint has been *lodged*. This means it includes unfounded complaints and misses unreported complaints. It also means that 99.2% of police officers are likely operating within their mandate, which means it's easily likely that someone who hangs out with a bunch of cops will never have met one of the "bad" ones.

That said, being held to a higher standard and actually *being* a higher standard of human being are not the same thing. Due to the stressful type of job policing is and the personality type that gravitates toward the job, there's likely a statistically significant level of abuse that would go unnoticed in most parts of society, but is highly visible and unacceptable here.

Note: The people most likely to want to get away after being apprehended are both guilty AND repeat offenders. The second factor being a group that might have the foresight to wear such a thing.

Wrong. I want to get away after being apprehended illegally.

You know--if the police decide to kidnap and beat me....or just beat the shit out of me while other offices stand by and watch^H^H^H^Hfigure out their cover stories....Maybe they'll just handcuff you and take you back to their torture chair to let you die...or your baby.

Maybe you should do nothing. You'll get your day in court, right? I mean--this is the United States of America where we have due process and a fair trial. The government would never fuck with that perfect system.
Resist. Always resist.