Cease fire, guys. And that means all of you. Personal attacks will stop right now.

I have nothing against cops. Heck, I used to be one, and I'm still a corrections officer at the jail. I'm not anti-cop (though, in all honesty, I am against sworn police officers who are employed by, and beholden to, the state). Almost all the cops that I've ever met really wanted to serve the public. And most of them really do, although all of them wind up enforcing laws that shouldn't be laws. (I quit being a cop because I was sick and tired of fighting a a hopeless and counter-productive War on Drugs.)

When they go beyond that, well, I write about them. But this thread is not about police. This thread is about prosecutors. Want to know why so many cops are bad? Because prosecutors let them. In fact, all too often they encourage it.

Cops get the brunt of the criticism, because everyone sees them. They're out in public, wearing uniforms that identify them, and driving cars that identify them. Prosecutors don't. If you saw one of your county prosecutors outside the courtroom, I doubt you would know who he was.

But he's the fellow who enforces bad laws. He's the one who will try to send you to prison for buying too much Sudafed for your allergies, or for giving a massage without a license, or for sending your children to the wrong school. And if a police officer injures or kills an innocent person, he's the one who is going to defend the cop.

If prosecutors really did their duty, so would the police. Sort of gives you an idea about how many good prosecutors there are, doesn't it?

I started this topic because I thought it was time to put the blame where it belongs. Prosecutors aren't the only ones to shoulder the responsibility, of course--but the bad ones are more deserving of our scorn than the cops are.

Onward and upward,
airforce