Officer friendly is not there anymore because people have lost the the fine art of acting civil towards police officers. The police are always 1 mistake away from a lawsuit for thier actions. If the american people would wake up and realize that life is not like the Jerry Springer show........ things might change.
I have far more faith in our cops than I do for the average jerks who had the cop sent thier way due to thier own bad behavior.
You need to put yourself in a cops shoes before you go off like this. Cops are screwed by thier own departments, lawyers, civil groups, and Joe public. I can see why some of them become jaded.
No, it's the opposite. The cops have changed. Not entirely on their own. Both the federal gummint and the local governments have changed the roles they expect cops to perform. They've been militarized. It's hard to be Officer Friendly when your employer recruits for Officer Pitbull, trains recruits to become Officer Pitbull, and rewards Officer Pitbull while not rewarding Officer Friendly.
It's a lot like trucking. The customers and dispatchers say GO GO GO, and safety and the law are saying NO NO NO, and the drivers are caught in the middle. The GO GO GO guys cover more miles, make more, and are rewarded with even more. But it's still the responsibility of the driver to behave legally, isn't it?
So if the cops are caught in a similar dilemma, I feel for them, and I'm not just saying that. But in the end, the People are their boss, and I expect them to respect everybody's rights and treat the public respectfully. If they feel they can't do that and fulfill what their municipality wants, there's always barber college. The Bill of Rights comes FIRST.
As for politeness, many cops object to being called anything but "Officer." I've heard cops "correct" someone for calling them something more familiar (like in this video:
YouTube - Baltimore Cop & Skaters, which is described thusly:
A Baltimore police officer was suspended yesterday after a YouTube video surfaced on the Internet showing him berating and manhandling a teenage skateboarder at the Inner Harbor.
On the video, the officer, Salvatore Rivieri, puts the boy in a headlock, pushes him to the ground, questions his upbringing, threatens to “smack” him and repeatedly accuses the youngster of showing disrespect because the youth refers to the officer as “man” and “dude.”
At one point, Rivieri, a 17-year veteran of the force, says:
“Obviously, your parents don’t put a foot in your butt quite enough, because you don’t understand the meaning of respect. First of all, you better learn how to speak. I’m not ‘man.’ I’m not ‘dude,’ I am Officer Rivieri. The sooner you learn that, the longer you are going to live in this world. Because you go around doing this kind of stuff and somebody is going to kill you."
Also thusly:
"Just what the hell is the matter with the police in this country?"
I'm asked that question constantly, and can't adequately answer it despite the fact that I've studied this issue for literally decades -- including for a stretch waaaaaaaay back in my teen years when I seriously considered a career in law enforcement. I can diagnose the issue in political, demographic, and ideological terms; I describe the insidious influence of federal subsidies, regulations, and blackmail (in the form of litigation, consent decrees, and the like); I can sermonize about the unhappy results when unchecked power is combined with the results of Original Sin....
And even then, I still find myself unable even to begin to explain spectacles like this, or to witness them on video without wanting, at the very least, to track down this power-intoxicated punk-a$$ bully and beat the snot out of him:
Officer Rivieri presents an impressive recital of pseudo-tough-guy mannerisms -- from the affected "Command Voice," to the comically theatrical flaring of non-existent lats, to the swagger-waddle (call it a "swaddle") of supposed authority, to the criminal assault on a skinny, terrified kid. I'm forced to agree with him in one respect, though: He's not a man, nor any part thereof.)
So here's the thing in regard to familiarity and politeness: Again, the cops aren't our masters; we're their (and it's "their," not "thier") masters. So I don't have to be polite to him. I should, and I have and will continue to do so as long as they respect my rights and treat me respectfully. But when it comes down to it, I can call him anything that doesn't constitute a threat. I couldn't call him "the soon-to-be-late Officer Smith" or something like that. But I can call him <deleted> or <deleted> or <deleted> or all sorts of things that would make Jesus sad. And if I do, he'll smile and keep a civil tongue in his head and continue to call me Sir. I am his boss, not the other way around.
I've never done that. I've never had personal interactions with cops that made me want to. But I'd have done so to Officer Rivieri.
Stated another way, Fred can't go into Mr. Slate's office and tell him he's a dunderhead, but Mr. Slate can call Flintstone into his office and tell him he's a screwup, and it's incumbent on Fred to smile and promise to do better.
