Originally Posted by kane

In the end I think what it boils down to is that you think they are far more corrupt than they probably are and I think they are less corrupt than they probably are.

To respond to your point about the drunk cop driving, hitting someone and killing them then his fellow cops throwing a fundraiser for him while on duty. That sounds bad if that is how it really went down. However, I don't think they were trying to justify or defend what he did, they were most likely raising money for a friend/co-worker and made a stupid decision about how and when to do this. I'm sure there have been other cases where this kind of thing has happened, but because they aren't cops we don't hear about it. Still, I have always felt that cops should be held to a higher standard so if this really happened as you say it did something should be done about it.

One last point. I don't see the silence of most cops as their endorsing this behavior, but as a mode of both self and career preservation. When a normal person goes to work they have a pretty black and white job, when a cop goes to work often much of their day involves judgement calls. If they get a reputation as the guy who will call you out if you do something wrong a lot of people won't trust or want to work with that person and it could put them in harms way. Most cops spend their entire day being lied to so when something goes down they typically are going to side with a fellow cop. That said, when it is obvious corruption and there is obvious wrong doing they should speak up and say that they don't endorse that and I know that often do, but that isn't a sexy headline that makes for a good Youtube video or a front page story so we only hear about the ones that are truly fucked up.