Let's say locking down those city blocks is a violation of civil rights, what's the alternative? Would you rather he got away? I just don't see the concerted effort by the state to alienate our rights like you do. I see a bunch of guys putting their life on the line to protect their community and then getting shit on for how they do it...
The alternative is to catch him like they did every other criminal in the history of the U.S.
Let's be clear: I am not "shitting on" the police officers on the ground for doing their jobs. They did what they were told to do, and it involved placing their lives at risk. They deserve all the credit in the world for that. But those officers are not the ones who decided to lock down [the wrong] 20 block radius of Watertown, MA: the politicians did that.
I now don't know who I hate more…MYSELF…for initially being "usually obtuse and lacking context"...or YOU…for making me waste nearly an hour of my life I'll never get back just for the sake of proving you wrong. FML.
After that WONDERFUL diversion….I stand by my original statement. If you fucking never want to ever talk to the police, never call 911…cuz you just made an appointment to do exactly that.
Truth in Advertising: I come from a proud LEO family.
I, too, have family who serve as LEOs. They went into the job with the best intentions -- to protect and serve -- but my experience with police has yet to be positive.
There were the times in the 80s where my mom called them because her husband at the time was beating her. They told her to take a walk or drive.
There was the time when my car got broken into. I got an unsympathetic shrug and a piece of paper to give the insurance company.
There have been dozens of times I've watched an officer violate traffic laws because he can. The other week I got pulled over because a cop came up in my blind spot going 90ish in a 55, causing me to swerve back into my lane. He was in such an emergency that he could pull me over for almost cutting him off. But he had the 'decency' to let me off with 'just a warning.'
If the police think you are guilty, they will use every dirty trick they know to incriminate you, and bypass anything they can get away with. In their minds, you are guilty and they hate the bs 'red tape' they have to get through to prove it.
I have read countless stories of police arresting people for recording them in public. If I shouldn't have anything to hide by letting them in my house, why do they have anything to hide while doing their duty in public space?
There are the rare cases, such as this one, where police do a tough, necessary job to protect the public at large. But the majority of the time they are useless as tits on a bull, arresting people and writing tickets for petty crap that arguably shouldn't even be illegal to meet their quotas (again, not the officers' faults, but the politicians who govern them). The only purpose a beat cop serves is to provide a visible presence to make people feel like they are being protected; the probability a cop on the beat stops a crime in progress is extremely low.