So this is what was asked from an "expert" cop online and this is the answer that was given... please read on to understand the mentality of these people working in the system against all of us.

Careers: Police - Law Enforcement - News/Issues - AllExperts.com

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Question:
I'm interested in becoming a police officer in Texas. But, I want to know how other police officers deal with moral issues about the laws they disagree with personally. Are there even such officers around or do all officers blindly enforce the law regardless of their personal views? Is such a blind enforcement a requirement to be a LEO?

Example: Discriminating laws regarding blacks had to be enforced by officers prior to civil rights movement if they were to enforce all applicable laws without using their personal judgment or discretion.

I'm more interested to know how the officers' own discretion or judgment is allowed to work in LE system regarding such laws & issues. Of course the massively racists laws don't exist anymore, I only used it as a distinguishable example.

Thank you for your time and efforts.

Answer:
You have hit on the age old question of following orders and laws even though you may not agree with them. Laws are voted on and passed by our governing bodies, if police officers were able to pick and choose what laws we want to enforce, then you can probably imagine how bad that could get. You can not start not enforcing this law or that, because then you have to decide where to draw the line at other laws and being fair to all the people you are sworn to serve.

I am sworn to serve all the people, equally, and without putting my own personal feelings about the laws I enforce into the mix. If I let the guy with a little amount of pot go, then how much pot does he have to have to be arrested, if at all? What gives me the right to do that?

Police officers have discretion only when it comes to civil infractions, also known as traffic laws (most). We have some discretion then, but even that has to be used fairly. If you are going to be lenient on one person, then you should be lenient to all people in the same given situation right? You see the problem?

While police officers may have personal views on certain laws and subjects, when it comes to work, and enforcing those laws, we have to follow what our government has put down for us. If I disagree with a law, I can not say I will not enforce it, or I am violating my sworn duty to uphold the laws of the state and country.
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Now this is my argument, please feel free to share yours

Laws are voted on and passed by our governing bodies
Then how come when these very same governing bodies start working towards some sort of decriminalization or legalization, it is these very same LEOs who start fussing around and making a lot of noise that this is wrong and its going to lead to increase in crime and send a bad message ,etc etc? Why is that?

u cant shut up while the system is in accordance with your self-interest and whine/bitch when it's not. if u ought to be fair as you say yourself, u gotta shut up all the time and just obey what u r ordered, even if it is something thats going to slash your income or make your job more dangerous.

if police officers were able to pick and choose what laws we want to enforce, then you can probably imagine how bad that could get. You can not start not enforcing this law or that, because then you have to decide where to draw the line at other laws and being fair to all the people you are sworn to serve.
In fact, this is already happening in many places. It's called "racial profiling". You choose to scrutinize and needlessly suspect blacks far more than whites regarding enforcing all laws... or i should say not all but many officers do this deliberately and its even included in their education. result is we have far more blacks in prison than whites while we have 10x that white population out there. the line is very well drawn, a black person is more likely to be stopped and searched with any BS reason than the white folk; this applies to convictions as well. there are statistics on this.

and how bad could it get? really? if officers started letting off people with personal amount of marijuana (few grams- up to perhaps a zone or maybe 2) go without trouble? how bad would it get? would they go n smoke the reefer and go shoot up a restaurant in madness? I bet the only bad that would come out of it would be the police & legal not making the money on that one ticket/arrest, thats as bad as it could get.

a pound or a QP are reasonably not in criteria of personal use by common sense, so these same officers could still make a call on that and go for it.

What about serving the constituents who pay for your income with THEIR HARD EARNED MONEY IN TAXES? Should u not think about them? maybe the people in congress are really not our representatives... dont u think about that, as there are a ton of issues where these lawmakers side with lobbies than people, like the very current 700 billion dollar bailout plan? are u reduced to a robot by the system? perhaps a lot of these folks are robots.

I guess the underlying problem is this: Even the system cannot trust its own agents' common sense. Yeah i know such pick n choose strategy of all laws can have bad results in general, but why should the police stay silent against his own mind. why should the police just follow the orders and not have a movement to change some laws? do police believe not that one day they will be judged for their hypocritical decisions?

If I let the guy with a little amount of pot go, then how much pot does he have to have to be arrested, if at all? What gives me the right to do that?
So, I'm going to assume if any of these officers were doing their duty in 1940s and 1950s, they would still follow those shameful "laws" discriminating to blacks and minorities, would they not? he is clearly saying I'm sworn to give up my brain and use all in my power to enforce what I'm told to enforce, period. I bet in character you are no different than a professional assassin. It's just a different authority u listen to (government), which is proven not have been necessarily correct in many ways (again, the legal discrimination back in the old days)

Police officers have discretion only when it comes to civil infractions
and this is exactly why I applaud all those states, counties or cities that have passed ordinances to make marijuana violations the lowest priority and/or have made laws to MAKE law enforcers to issue a citation instead of arresting non-violent marijuana offenders. I know, none of this will make this a civil matter due to federal law, but its the first step in that direction.
also another reason for activists to push harder on state/local level than federal, feds hold way too much power and interest in this matter, but if u get 30 states who have such laws, what are the feds going to do in face of majority? If u have 20 more counties like santa cruz filing law suits against the federal system, u think the feds will be able to just keep doing what they do? not a chance... thats how civil rights movement was won, case by case... alertness increased and news was made and at some point it was nothing to be hidden from public's judgment anymore and became the movement we all know.

We need all of our cities to do this, maybe that can give the good cops a little room to listen to their conscious. Although I personally have encountered police officers who clearly knew i had weed on me and I was smoking, but did not give me hell at all; in fact one clearly saw the smoke and smelled it for sure while he came behind me in the parking lot that i was in. he was there only because a suspicious car was reported there which would be mine!
he really didnt even get out of his car although I was sure im going to jail... but i guess I had a lucky night.

We are dealing with a brutal robotic system, we don't need to worry about the time where Irobot (story of the movie named Irobot) becomes the reality. It already is the reality, the agents of the government don;t think for themslves, they just listen to what they are told to do. They are trained to ignore they concisions and their own common sense. and this is the government that's supposed to serve us the people. If this is going on at the lowest of the government's agents, then how brainwashed and robotic are those people @ the top? one could draw the analogy that those are the super computers/servers directing these robots...

I rest my case
flyingimam Reviewed by flyingimam on . Wake up! This is how these people think So this is what was asked from an "expert" cop online and this is the answer that was given... please read on to understand the mentality of these people working in the system against all of us. Careers: Police - Law Enforcement - News/Issues - AllExperts.com here is the full page in details Question: I'm interested in becoming a police officer in Texas. But, I want to know how other police officers deal with moral issues about the laws they disagree with personally. Are there even Rating: 5