Should you really be a little dirty to fight crime?

You might get a little dirty fighting grime but you can always have a good wash afterwards.

The job of the police officer is to arrest suspects. It is the job of the courts to determine guilt.

Killing a suspect in the line of duty should be considered much more of a shame than it currently is. No one should get a pat on the back and a medal for killing a suspect, or to be made proud of themselves for it.

Legitimately protecting one’s own life is acceptable. It’s necessary, but fervently outside the job description. They are police officers, not executioners.

There have been dozens of movies made about this very question. It’s a tough situation, but as long as we live in a nation of laws (editorial comment: well, we have ignored the laws about snooping and wiretapping, so…. take this for what it’s worth) then the integrity of law enforcement is based on the assumption that the “good guys” are doing this according to those laws.

I’m sure that any number of people from the FBI on down would like to take matters into their own hands, but as @Seek_Kolinahr wrote above, the cops are there to enforce the law and make arrests, and the court system is there to decide on guilt and punishment.

The alternative is to have a system like Egypt’s. (Even Saudi Arabia, as backwards a place it is, has a court system.)

But looking at it in another light, wouldn’t that solve some of the problems. Image a guy you know personally is selling drugs to little kids and is getting away over and over again, and then one day you heard on the news that police shot him in an ally-way, saying that he allegedly shot behind them. You would not care if it was true or not…wouldn’t you. You would just be glad he is gone.

Reminds me of Richard Gere in Internal Affairs, now that was one dirty cop.

” , is it sometimes necessary to actually just kill them in the line of duty instead of following the rules? Would the vigilante way actually be the right way sometimes? ”

That is called murder.

” You would not care if it was true or not…wouldn’t you. You would just be glad he is gone. ”

Why stop with the drug dealer? There is a myriad amount of people that we could kill and not care about.

That is why the law is above men and why all men, even police, answer to it. Who decides? The law, worked out over countless years to be that abstract, not absolute, that we generally adhere to.

@Eggie: “Should you really be a little dirty to fight crime?”

No. You are asking if you should commit crime to fight crime. Sure, it might work. But I’d rather have the original crime than the crime that is generated to fight crime.

@Eggie: “But looking at it in another light, wouldn’t that solve some of the problems. Image a guy you know personally is selling drugs to little kids and is getting away over and over again, and then one day you heard on the news that police shot him in an ally-way, saying that he allegedly shot behind them. You would not care if it was true or not…wouldn’t you. You would just be glad he is gone.”

Actually I would care. A lot. I would would rather live in a society where the occasional criminal gets away with his/her crimes than one in which the cops are criminals.

I think drug crimes are blown WAY out of proportion.

There’s no doubt in my mind that the NYPD is dirty, dirty, dirty.

I don’t see a connection to their sworn duty to fight crime.

Whether acts are “crime” or not is the wrong way to view the world. What should concern you is whether behavior is pro-social or antisocial. Most cops and criminals alike fall in the latter category, using force to exert their will on others. Both are dangerous and should be avoided.