I don’t believe that the War on Drugs is a good enough excuse to kick in my door without warning. If my door’s getting kicked in, regardless of what the perpetrators are yelling or what they’re wearing, my first instinct is to use the 12 gauge that I keep for just such a reason. The safety of law enforcement officers means nothing to me when compared to the safety of my family.

Of course, if they wish to follow the professional route and get a warrant that requires knocking on the door, I will be an example of cooperation.

Ethan, there have many examples of such. Normally, what happens is that an investigation is performed and unless the police can come up with a good reason (hint: there is none), then the family usually gets a settlement. Very few are ever prosecuted, even when the mistakes made border on the criminal.

While the local constabulary (Ablemarle and C’ville LEOs) have been quite professional and polite the few times that I’ve interacted with them, I’ve seen several reports of abusive, unprofessional and incompetent behavior. One of the most recent is a cop almost hitting people near the downtown mall and arresting them for almost getting hit. Another is the wheelchair-bound dude that was crossing the street when the cop almost (or did) hit him. Of course, the victim was charged.

Often when the police fuck up, their first instinct is to arrest the victim in order to appear that they were in the right. When this happens and the victim’s charges are thrown out, nothing happens to the officer that fucked up.

People would have a far better view of law enforcement if they didn’t so often protect their own even when they’re own have stepped on their dicks and the dicks of the citizenry. I firmly believe that if there’s a cop that is aware of police corruption or abuse and does nothing about it, he’s just as corrupt as the dirty cop. That kind of paints most cops with the same brush, unfortunately. This means that even if an officer has a high moral standard, is professional and competent, he’s no better than the dirtbag cop that he’s aware of and does nothing about.