Hey, wait a minute! Did you think about the lack of logic here? The implication of your statement is that we must not want to be police officers or we would be. That's simply not true. Perhaps we can't meet the physical requirements. Perhaps we are disqualified for some other reason. Some cities require their police officers to live within city limits. Maybe we don't. Obviously, I could go on and on.

Back to your fundamental point: I chose long ago to do something productive for society and generously remunerative for me. I can argue -- though I realize that many would disagree -- that airport cops are not really contributing very much to society, and the salary is certainly insufficient to attract the vast majority of people who can get better-paying jobs. We can probably leave it at that and not try to generalize about other personal qualities.

Bruce

It's still there. The view from there isn't very good though.

Not sure where the part about making up laws comes from; but cops are allowed to lie to suspects in an attempt to extract a confession. I guess a cop could say you were guilty of some extreme non-existing offense in an attempt to get you to say "no! I didn't do that! I only did some offense that you now admit to.

I.e. "You are being pulled over for doing 90 in a 65." --"No officer; I was only doing 73!"

I'm simply taking umbrage with folks who think that cops are nothing but donut-eating PITAs -- that's been the tone thus far.

Whether or not you think "airport cop" is a cake job or not, I am taking the simple position that most of us have no desire to strap on a gun and walk a beat, whether at LAN or ORD or in Winnetka or a housing project. And by nature of doing that job, you put yourself at risk and carry a significant responsibility. And the contribution to society? Well, I would hate to live in a place where we didn't have cops around. And, I do acknowlege that we also live in a society where most folks respect the law.

As for remuneration, my brother in law is a detective with a suburban Chicago PD. His take home, with legitimate overtime, special assignments, and so forth, is nicely into the six figures. And he earns every penny.

We can certainly argue about specific individuals who don't seem to pull their weight or throw their authority around, but I feel that the vast majority of cops do their job well and with minimal hassle of the average Joe.

You might want to have a beer sometime with a couple street cops or do a ride along and see what it's like. As the old saying goes, "hours of sheer boredom interupted by moments of pure excitement (terror, fear, etc.)!"

I have threatened to charge people with 8 USC 979, Lying to a Federal Agent (this is a ficticious charge, of course, there is no such thing), in order to scare them into telling the truth. LEOs are allowed to lie and use trickery in their interviews, as you may or may not know. It is not pushing any ethical bondry I believe in and have discussed it many times with my partners. The suspects have most of the rights and the system in their favor. Our hands are pretty well tied in many regards so I use all the tools I have to get the job done.

It should be noted that this is generally something I would do if I was pretty far into it with a suspect. It would not be something I did in an intial interview, but only in one where I was very sure the person was guilty and was being evasive or lying outright.

I thought it was illegal to lie to a federal agent--is it just the cite you are making up? That's how they got Martha Stewart...

http://library.lp.findlaw.com/articl...justice_2_2274

Good to know. Thanks for your input.

[Mental note made.]

Anyway, it still seems that the airport cop telling someone that watching airplanes is against federal law is a far cry from the situation you've described.

Martha was not arrested for lying to a fed. That happens every day. Her charge was obstruction of justice, which is different. Lying under oath is a charge (perjury or similar) but simply lying to a fed is a normal day.

The cite I used I pulled right from my .... It just sounded impressive when I rattled it off.

one of the best places for plane watching is the Renaissance Hotel at ATL airport.

Before I moved to ATL, I'd always book a room there and when I had the time, would spend hours watching planes take-off and landing right in front of me. I especially liked waiting and watching for my wife's plane to land (BA or SR). I could time it to the minute to go and fetch her.

Do these new rules mean that sooner or later the hotel will have to put shutters on its windows or worse, a policeman will show up and ask the hotel to move?

Hi law dawg. I would suggest that you read the article I linked. It is by an attorney and regards being prosecuted for lying to a federal agent while not under oath.

Interesting. We never used this charge unless it is under oath. I studied it in my academies but did not remember that it applied regardless of under oath due to the realities of my district. The standard of proof for the court system in my district is too high. Regardless, it is policy in my area that they won't take a case unless it is under oath. Like in many areas the standard changes and they can merely decline prosecution if they wish. The article says that the SCOTUS stuck down this requirement but I know full well that it is still alive and well. All they have to do is fail to prosecute at the prosecutorial level, and there is nothing SCOTUS can do about that.

Well, now I have a real charge to go along with my bluff. Thanks.

Regardless of my feelings about making things up to extract a confession, that seems to be a different game from making up a law to threaten/intimidate someone performing a perfectly legal activity. Personally, I think it's unethical. Seems like abuse of power to me, and I would hope such activity would be vigorously punished.

There's a reason the suspect has most of the rights on paper. You have the gun and all of the power/force. You can beat/shoot the suspect, and if he fights back in self-defense he gets charged with resisting and assault on a LEO even if you were wrong or abusive.

LEOs scare me. I'm generally not a lawbreaker, so they really shouldn't. The fact that they scare me is an indication something is wrong with the system.

Good observation. Now we know not to believe any citation of U.S. code 2.3.4 that some two-bit LEO tries to scare us with. I wish the plane-watcher in the original story had said to the airport cop, "Prove it." True, it would have resulted in a huge hassle and possibly a long battle in court, but if there's no law they can't run plane-watchers off public property except by abuse of power and lies.

Gradgirl asked me a question. I gave her an answer. She did not ask about specific incidences. She did not ask me if I agreed with what allegedly happened in this specific incident.

That is not the reason they have all the rights at all. The reason for that is our founding fathers had a distrust of government after their experiences with the British and wished to limit its powers. It has nothing to do with LEOs carrying guns. And your beat/shoot the suspect analogy is poor. That also has nothing to do with limitations of LEOs. What you described is a crime, just one perpetrated by LEO.

I'd say get out more. If the LEOs in the US scare you then you haven't experienced many other countries and what their LEOs can do.

No, that's bad logic. Just because cops in some other countries are very scary doesn't mean that cops here aren't scary at all. The fact of the matter is that cops are scary everywhere. They have the power to arrest people. In the hands of unethical or unscrupulous people, that power is inherently scary.

Bruce