87chriss- i have lived most of my life in miami, i left for three years to join the military. I was born in jackson memorial, i was raised in allapattah, went to jackson high school. I think you get at least a picture as to where and how i was raised. Guess what, never had a run in with the law. I never had a chance to see any cockiness, arrogance, crooked cops. Were/are there any? Probably. Unfortunately, in every profession/job, there are. If you have had run-ins with the law, chances are you were up to no good or were with people who were up to no good. I am sorry about your friend. He is not here to defend himself so i wont go there. I will only say, if an off-duty officer shot your friend, that means that your friend may have not known he was a cop. I would imagine that the officer was in civilian clothes. People tend to act a little tougher when no uniform is present. There has to be more to that story but i'll leave it there. Miami can be rough, i know, i live here. If you look to do wrong, or if you associate yourself with people who do wrong, or you live in a neighborhood where people tend to do wrong, chances are you might get stopped or pulled over. Its the nature of the beast bud. First thing i did was move the heck out of allapattah. I am a police officer in dade county. I treat everyone with respect. If i stop you, its for a reason. If i am dealing with you for a lawful reason and you suck your teeth at me or you walk away or pull away, you will deal with me and it wont go well. You respect me, i will respect you, i will explain why i am there and why i stopped you once i know you are unarmed. If its an attitude from the get go, its going down hill quick cause you know who i am, i dont know who you are and we both want to go home in one piece. There are people, like yourself, that will never know why/how we do things or the attitudes we have. It comes with dealing with so many criminals,assholes,know it all's, critics on a routine basis and everyone pays our salaries. Funny thing is, most of them receive money that i and the rest of working america pay for them to stay home and do nothing. Some people do need welfare/wic, and everything else, i understand that, its the freeloaders that i have a problem with. Its an entitlement society right now. If you are gainfully employed, you are paying others to stay home. Are there some bad apples or guys who take the badge a little too far, yes. I agree. But that should not represent the police officers. If you live in an area that is crime ridden, chances are you are going to be at least watched. If you have a fast car and drive like an asshole in your neighborhood, you are going to get stopped. Is my job always fighting crime? No, we all take breaks no matter where we work. If people knew how many laws there are that we can take people to jail for and don't, you would say that we are good guys. If people knew the amount of traffic statutes we could give tickets for and don't, you would think we are great guys. If a cop pulls you over and gives you a ticket, he's an asshole, if he gives you a break, he was one of the good ones. So should we never give tickets? Stop people for criminal infractions? Stop people from selli g dope? No? Then you would say that we do nothing all day. If we do give tickets and arrest people, then we are assholes. We are a necessary evil. Bottom line. Evil, i hope you read this also. Not trying to change your minds cause i know it wont but i thought i would put my 2 cents in here. At the end of the day, we are the only police you/we have. Sometimes we can be arrogant, assholes, friendly, polite...etc, but if the shit hits the fan, wether it be in your neighborhood or if god forbid, a terrorist attack happens here, rest assured, we have your back. Rant over.
