holy guacamole said..

kiterboy said..

Kamikuza said..

That's as silly as giving speeding tickets to ambulance drivers rushing to and from a hospital.

Hey hey hey, now c'mon, speeding is speeding, there are laws against it and they should be applied equally to everyone!

Maybe if police officers who are convicted of committing an assault or worse while on the job get mandatory goal time, they'd do a whole lot less of it.

Works the other way around apparently.

HG, maybe you should become a Police Officer yourself. Imagine the good you could do spreading the love, sharing calming, soothing words, hugs etc while the darling dirtbag you are trying to arrest for murder, rape, assault etc is biting kicking scratching abusing and trying to kill you. You aren't allowed to have a bad day eaither. You must at all times be 100% on the ball, even if your day has consisted of breaking horrific news to families of horrific crimes, picking up a dead child from a car accident, being abused and assaulted yourself and probably much more and probably by the same dirtbags you arrested last week and were allowed to walk free by the Courts.
And don't come back saying, thats their job. Everybody has a breaking point, even you.

holy guacamole said..
Yep everyone has a breaking point. If crossing that point amounts to a crime, they should Be dealt with by the full force of the law.

Being a police officer is no excuse for assault.

Therefore my original point, that mandatory goal time for assaulting a police officer is fine, provided it applies to everyone, including police.

Sure have mandatory sentencing but don't single out police.

Same for military personnel. If they murder civilians - they do time right?

No, you're not talking about breaking points or outliers -- you said "assault is assault".

You're not leaving any room in that definition for the cops to do their job and catch the bad man, put him in cuffs and bring him before the judicial system for his own lawful assessment of his behavior.

If you were allowing for nuance in the process of enforcing justice ... you wouldn't be talking about a flat-rate sentencing system.

Military personal would go through a courts martial to determine whether or not their actions were lawful.

In short, it's stupid to apply a simple law & sentence across a broad and complex range of incidents.

holy guacamole said..
FFS Kamikuza no, I'm saying, that if ANYONE is convicted of assault, no matter who they are, they should have exactly the same criteria applied to sentencing.

Mandating special sentencing arrangements for assaulting a police officer is dangerous because first, it takes the decision about an appropriate sentence out of the judiciary's hands and second, it sends a message to the community that the police are somewhat above the law.

I imagine that may be why it doesn't exist. It's unethical.

Yes I know that's what you're saying and I'm still saying that's a stupid thing to say

But those laws are already in place in fact, if you assault someone employed as a police officer while they are off-duty, you'll get a different sentence than if you assault the same individual in the process of carrying out their lawful duties. Do try it out for yourself and let us know how that works out for you...

It does exist, and it is ethical. It's how we protect people on the front-line of ****ty jobs. It's also why the law tends to deal harsher with those convicted of betraying that public trust.

But sure, lets treat everyone the same.

holy guacamole said..
So wouldn't you say when a police officer "betrays the public trust" that they should be in for even longer than civilians?

After all, they should know better.

Like any other case, aggravating and mitigating circumstances. Judges sentence within the guidelines. Even "assault is assault" is incorrect amongst the citizenry.

If you're advocating for uniform levels of sentencing, regardless of the circumstances, that's not justice or even fair, let alone ethical. You simply can't address a case without taking into account the individual circumstances.

You may as well argue that professional drivers should get heavier traffic fines because "they should know better", without addressing the circumstances of the case.

Let me guess -- you got a chip on your shoulder against the cops because you got mouthy at a traffic stop and didn't get the respect you think you deserve but did get a hefty ticket?

Mr Milk said..
Lots of copsuckers on this site. My POV is that it takes a special kind of personality disorder to be one. The kind that lets you kiss up and kick down.
You believe the crap they feed you about how heroic their job is. Well, just look at the Hong Kong cops. Have they refused to enforce the new laws that China has imposed restricting freedom of speech? Or have they just pulled out their clubs and bashed protesters?
What makes you think that the Rum Corps are any different?

One too many tickets, eh?



Hong Kong -- it's not a love-in.

"...protesters have thrown rocks, bricks, and Molotov cocktails; used poles, street barricades and slingshots for fighting; vandalised businesses symbolising oppression from the authoritarian PRC regime, and targeted metro stations because of its operator's complicity with police in restricting people's freedom to protest."
www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/06/a-battle-for-the-soul-of-the-city-why-violence-has-spiralled-in-the-hong-kong-protests

And pro-China agitators have been putting their oars into the protestors too.

Kamikuza said..Let me guess -- you got a chip on your shoulder against the cops because you got mouthy at a traffic stop and didn't get the respect you think you deserve but did get a hefty ticket?

A poor guess.

I have nothing against the police force. I do take issue with people who want to mandate goal time to certain groups. It leaves no room for a judge to use discretion and it sets up a double standard the community would not tolerate.

" people who want to mandate goal time to certain groups." ?
Like you would for police officers convicted of assault?
I haven't seen this, I have seen people pushing for mandatory sentencing for certain crimes, reliant on a conviction for said crimes, but a separate sentence based on membership of a group? Care to give an example of who these "groups" that are to be subject to different sentencing laws as opposed to persons who are not members of this particular group?

holy guacamole said..

sn said..
whatever happened to "assaulting a police office" = mandatory goal time??

What about when a police officer assaults a civilian? Same rule applies?

Bring back RED thumbs