Originally Posted by
SgtScott31
Anyone can find stories of bad actions by bad LEOs, because good stories about the hundreds of thousands of legitimate arrests are not news worthy. A couple of bad officers in Chicago? How many does that agency have? excess of 30k.... As I mentioned to JMR, compare the bad apples to good in law enforcement and I'm sure it is less than 5%. That's still too many, but since the media's agenda is to simply "make the story," then all you will see is the bad apples. Not much I or my counterparts can do about that. We will never rid the law enforcement profession of bad officers, but I think most departments do what they can to make the number minimal.
I don't really have a disagreement with anything you said. The first 10 years of my career I worked in a support role for law enforcement agencies - three state level and a few local PDs and sheriffs. I lived next door to police officers. I have a lot of respect for the vast majority of dedicated, conscientious, hard-working LEOs. However; I can also see that political pressure, from MADD and others, has put many law enforcement agencies into a difficult position. With federal funding contingent on having states deal "appropriately" with DUI it is understandable that pressure is put on LEOs to produce. We all know that when things reach the point where LEOs have a quota to fill (whether formal or "unwritten") some individuals will start to cut corners and make questionable arrests.
As I stated before, I don't know where the threshold for "routine" lies. I think that is something for which each person will have a different answer. However; from my perspective we've reached the point where questionable and bogus DUI arrests are becoming more and more common.