Steve in PA

[Frenchy]

I don’t have to know this person personally to appreciate his knowledge and his patience on this board. It is obvious by some of the posts that some people have a very large chip on their shoulders against Police/Peace officers and that Steve has experience in dealing with these situations.

Some paint him short of corrupt, or at least make him out to be a person who does “favors” to his brotherhood. Tell you the truth, I also have many times had favors by Peace/Police officers and it has nothing to do with the line of work I am in.
In general, If you are polite, understanding and patient with the Police, they generally tend to be much better with you then if you come off as a hard a$$ as soon as one comes up to the window.

My Father was RCMP in the Montreal area, I learnt to respect their work, although dad was not a “cop” as such, he never the less worked in the same office and still knows many officers in the offices he worked in.

One of my friends was MUC-PD undercover narcotics, and when I saw the thread about the picture taking it reminded me about some thing that happened one night.

Being a close friend of the family, when my Grand Father died, he came about to give his respects… His name was Michel B. but when he showed up to the funeral home door, he was dressed as Dan, his undercover subject. I was asked to come to the door because some one was specifically asked for me. When I showed up to the door and met Dan, I did not recognize him at all. He then whispered to me, Its Me. Michel… I acknowledged I knew him, to the usher who could hardly believe I knew such a bum. I assured the Usher it was ok, our family knew him well.. He signed in the guest book as his real name… As in many funerals, there are pictures taken, one was of Dan.

No one would have thought this would have blown his cover, but it did, less then a week after my Grand Father was buried, I learnt that some Family friends had also died.
Diane, Pauline, her daughter who although I knew of, did not know personally.
Who where they?
Diane was Michel’s wife, he had not been home over 8 months to protect them being undercover, Pauline was his Sister in Law, and the young girl, merely a child was unfortunately there for the weekend.
Turns out, when the pictures where taken, Dan, Aka Michel was discovered by the people who he was investigating undercover. This linked him to our family, and to Diane who was regularly in contact with us.
The triple murder went down in history as a drug deal gone bad, and the child was the center of controversy. News papers and the media in general said the child had drug connections and some one had come to “pay” a visit… It was the last time I heard of Michel.

Do I respect a police officer’s right to privacy during a sting now? Most definitely! Did Michel ever do me or any one in the family “favors” I would have to say yes, and many times this included tickets to sell out shows and events.

Have I ever had favors because of my Father’s RCMP affiliations? Yes 2 times that I can think of, although probably more then that with out knowing.
We all do and receive favors from time to time, some times because of who we are, some times because of how we are or the line of business we are in.
Managers at stores get “perks” Auto makers give “perks” to students, military, certain companies and their employees… Airlines give “perks” to family members of pilots, and to certain credit card holders. Is a police officer who lets some one go with a warning doing some thing illegal? Police are not all like that. But I like to think most do it on a regular basis, their job is not to hunt down the honest citizen who drove too fast one day, it is to uphold the law in a “peaceful” manner, this is why I say Peace/Police officer, many are actually called Peace Keepers more then Police because that is their duties, to uphold the peace.

My hat is off to you Steve, You keep your cool even when some of us attack you here and you keep giving us good info.

[LorDiego01]

I appreciate Steve as a member of the forum, but I havent met him personally so I cant attest to his personality. Im sure he's a swell guy, and I'll take your word for it.

I do have a problem with you constantly reffering to police as "Peace Officers".
Welcome to the 21st Century Frenchy. We dont have Peace Officers, we now have "Law Enforcers". I prefer not to deal with the Police if I can avoid it by any reasonable means necessary.

The simple truth is that long gone are the days of the friendly neighborhood Peace Officer who stood in the corner and sayd "G'Day" and "G'evening" at you and your family when you walked by. What we have now are jack-booted thugs who yell orders and are actively looking for something to charge you with.

Are there good cops out there? Hell yeah there are. Are they the minority? I believe so.

Also, a very intresting experiment has been conducted many years ago about what happens to people when they are put in enforcers/criminals roles. Check it out, the results they found were nothing short of incredible.

http://prisonexp.org/ (Stafford Prison Experiments)

Overall, I dont think the problem is the people who work as our cops, I think the problems lies in the phsycological aspect of what happens to those people when they put on an uniform, are handed a weapon, and try to enforce bad laws.

[LorDiego01]

Managers at stores get “perks” Auto makers give “perks” to students, military, certain companies and their employees… Airlines give “perks” to family members of pilots, and to certain credit card holders. Is a police officer who lets some one go with a warning doing some thing illegal?

I thought this statement deserved its own post. I have a problem with your logic here. THe difference is that business can do whatever necessary to get more customers. This cannot be applied logically to the police the way you are trying to.

The Police are supported by the taxpayers, and if we all pay the same, then we should all be treated the same. I dont support a society where certain people with connections are not subject to the same laws and regulations than "normal" people. This is extremely apparent with Police, when a cop does something real bad, they get a slap on the wrist or paid leave, where, if your or me would do the same, we'd get crucified.

Imagine if you shot your hunting buddy in the face while out hunting? You'd be in jail, and your weapons confiscated. The police would storm your house and shoot at you if you didnt turn yourself in. When Dick Cheney shot that dude, the police went to get a statement, and he just sent them away.
YOU try doing that, and see where you end up. I know its an extreme between Frenchy and Dick Cheney, but you get the point.

Again, Im not trying to put anybody down, or insult anybody.

[danp]

I'm closing this thread I don't want a huge debate about police to be associated with Steve, this is silly. If you want to debate police in modern times start a new thread in the politics section.

Nothing personal, just don't want a member's name name associated with an unrelated debate.

This thread will be deleted later today.

Also, the 'feedback' section is meant ONLY for feedback related to transactions made via the classifieds section. Doesn't mean you can't post a thread saying how awesome another member is, just not in that section.

However I agree that Steve seems like a great guy and is a valuable asset to this forum.