Police aren't military and military aren't police, says pundit

I think it's very telling that people get so incensed when cops are threatened, but no one - until recently - seemed to think it mattered much when people felt, or were, threatened by cops. I'm a white guy, and I've been beaten severely for literally no reason whatsoever. I was sober, I wasn't belligerent, aggressive or sarcastic. I was asked a question that I did not take as rhetorical, "Who the fuck do you think you're talking to, boy?" said in an unprovoked, aggressive tone. I answered simply, and hesitantly, "You?" And the runt cop and three of his buddies dragged me out of my friend's car and proceeded to beat me mercilessly with their Mag Lights. Cops want to be feared. They proudly state now that it isn't their job to protect or serve, but to enforce the law. Since when are the two separate? In a separate case, I was at a road block and they told me to pull over to the side. I said simply, "Why am I being pulled over?" The cop at my window turned to his buddy and said, "Do we need to teach this fuck a lesson?" My own elderly mother, before she died, was protesting the cops beating the shit out of my brother, who was merely trying to protect our niece from a violent boyfriend, and they threatened to take her to jail. Furthermore, they beat him so badly that his arm got split open from the force of their baton blows. It got infected and the doctors were not able to sew it up as a result. He had to keep gauze stuffed in it for months and eventually got sepsis from it, which subsequently weakened his heart. He died a few months afterward from a massive coronary.

Looked a little something like this...only more human.

Point being, people fear cops with good reason. They're not trained to investigate anything anymore - so we can just dispense with the whole idea that they're the "investigative arm of the government" nonsense. They're hired guns, plain and simple. Worse, their training is far more akin to that received by paramilitary units than that of traditional police work. Worse still, by all evidence I've seen, they enjoy it. Most of them don't seem to be doing it because they feel like they're giving back to their communities. The few that do are the exception, not the rule. And they sure as hell aren't doing it for the pay. No, they do it because of how powerful it makes them feel. And believe me - ask any politician, business owner, or corporate executive, and if they're being honest, they'll tell you there is nothing more intoxicating or more addictive than power. And frankly, other than becoming or drug lord or the like, becoming a cop is one of the very few avenues in which a largely uneducated, middle class redneck can ever achieve power.

And before you respond with the predictable, "What the fuck do you know about it?" or "Not all cops are like that" yada yada, my brother-in-law is a cop, three close friends of mine are cops, my next door neighbor is a cop, and my ex-girlfriend's best friend dated at least five cops during the two years we dated. And those don't even number among the countless cops I have interviewed as a reporter for the last ten years. Suffice to say, I've had ample experience with them, and with the exception of my two friends (yeah, the third is pretty typical, but he's hilarious so I keep him around), my experiences have been largely negative. And while I don't fear them anymore, it's because I have spent so much time around them, and most of them in my community know who I am. The last thing any cop wants is to piss off a journalist. If he has any sense, that is.

All that to say, if a middle class white man with no criminal record has reason to fear them, you're a goddamn fool if you think blacks have no reason to fear them. Beat cops are not trained to ask questions first. They are trained to control a situation, then, if they happen to think about it, they might ask questions. But that's usually reserved for the detectives. And sadly, people in poor communities are often not only unaware that that is how cops are trained to handle a situation, they are also taught very young that cops are bad and not there to help them at all, to treat them as the enemy (which they very decidedly are) and never to trust them. Lastly, a militarily trained police force is not equipped to "police" anyone. The military is a machine designed for one purpose - to kill. Just as marines should not be required to police occupied countries because of their training - and they'll tell you quick that they aren't trained to do so - neither should police be acting as a military unit. You don't send a dentist in to treat pneumonia anymore than you would send a regular doctor in to fill a cavity. Yeah, their training is vaguely similar, but neither is qualified to do the other's job. Capiche?

Can you tell the difference?

Yeah, me neither...oh, wait, those other guys are wearing green. But isn't that army col---? Nevermind...