I decided to blog about this because with all of the violence going on in the media with police involved shootings its becoming so repetitive. The amount of good things that the police do is looked to the side because of the select negativie events that happen. Whether the shootings are justified or not they still become the center of media, and the police get a negative image. I put this on my blog because I found it to be quite funny seeing the situations and people the police have to deal with. Im fairly certain my remained blog posts are all going to be aimed towards the positive things the police do for people because I am getting sick of the media portraying the police as a bad group of people.

This blog entry is a direct response to Dr. Kyburz video of "What Do You Think of the Police".
What is the effect of these interviews? The effect of these interviews is interesting because they interview people from all over the world, and get opinions on the police from multiple different countries. For the most part it seemed like majority of the people respected the police forces in there countries. However, for example when we look at Mexico during the inteviews with citizens from Mexico City they are in fear of the police, and do not like them. Doing my own research and just visitng on vacations and asking questions to cab drivers and citizens we can see that Mexico has one of the most corrupt police forces out in the world, and the way they handle situations is very different and aggressive compared to how it would be handled somewhere else. These interviews make you either appreciate the police or realize there is something wrong with out modern day law enforcement agencies. 

Is this a good tool for getting people talking and thinking about the complexities of Law Enforcement? Why? Why not? This is a good tool for getting people talking about the complexiites of law enforcement however it doesnt seem to be that beneficial if you compare the police in the United States to the police force in Mexico. Law enforcement is complex and always will be complex its the select negative actions of police officers that lead citizens to think negative and or positive about the police.

Was there a particular comment that struck you? Why? How? There was two comments that struck me in particular. The first one was that the boy in the beginning saying how "Just because youre wearing a blue uniform people fucking hate you". This comment stuck out because I was told by many police officers that people disrespect them and hate them for what they are wearing not for who they actually are. Its sad, but that comment is true and I wish it changed. Another comment that stuck out to me is the comment on how we should disarm police officers. That comment doesnt make sense because we will never take guns off the street 100% so what happens when the police dont have weapons to keep us safe?

I wanted to write about this video I found on YouTube because it shows a positive encounter with law enforcement and the public. In the time of how it is when law enforcement is viewed so negatively on the news and social media this story really brings out the positive aspects of law enforcement, and it shows that not all police officers are bad people. In Lowell, Michigan the police department conducted traffic stops on minor violations, and in return helped the public by providing them with Christmas presents. During the stop the officers would find out what kind of presents the adults were shopping for, and they actually had people go and get the presents to give them. In the video, you can see that the people are shocked and super excited to see the police care especially after telling the officers that money is tough this year. At the end of the video, a note says "Lowell Police Department is not encouraging minor traffic violations, but it is important for police departments to take the time to show they care".

image source

I am writing about my opinions on reflecting back on the video of the Laquan McDonald shooting that we viewed in class last week. The video is a dash cam of the former Chicago police officer Jason Van Dyke brutally gunning down McDonald 16 times. I am not a police officer, but I know that in the academy you are to use your firearm to take someones life. The way Officer Van Dyke used his firearm was to the extreme. The ammount of bullets discharged from the firearm was a gross number. It would have been more justified if the officer had only fired at max 2-3 times, but the fact he shot him so many continious times even when the threat was over was outrageuous. You can see in the video that even after McDonald fell to the ground the officer was continuing to shoot him as you can see McDonalds body twitch and move after each shot is put into him. I think in this situation the way the shooting happened due to the severity of it makes it a wrongful act, however I cant exactly agree on one or anothers side because I wasnt there at the time of the shooting, and I didnt know what was going through the officers head during the incident.