Further to the discussion

Wow blog discussions are fun, for full background to this post check out moonflake's blog. Just to clarify: I'm not attacking moonflake, only her position. ;)

I don't think I've got much to hide, and if that was the only factor influencing me here I'd say, sure go ahead check my ID, arrest me if there's a warrant out for my arrest. The problem is that I don't trust the police! Do you?

I'm not just talking about honesty here, corruption is a serious flaw in our police force but I doubt that would really affect me on a personal level. I'm also talking about the ability to make a reasonable and rational decision. Let face it, being a cop is not the best job in the country, and for that reason it doesn't attract the best candidates. Sure the odd police man does his job because he loves keeping people safe and shit, but most of them get the job because the only entry qualification is a std 8 certificate. Honestly, considering what the job entails, who's want to be a cop? Long hours, extreme danger, very little pay and almost no respect: sounds like a winner to me, not! It's kinda like that book 'catch 22' where bombing missions were so dangerous that nobody wanted to do them, but the only way to avoid bombing missions was to be declared insane, unfortunately the only way to be declared insane was to volunteer for bombing missions!

My experiences with the police have not been altogether pleasant. Now if I was a Cape Flats drug dealer or something that would be expected but because of the fact that I'm an average law abiding citizen it has me a little worried. I'm talking about the attitude received when going in to report a robbery or car accident, or paying a friends admission of guilt fine and bailing him out of the can. In my experience cops are bullies who don't really give a shit about you but think it's cool that they get to carry a gun. Oh guns, that reminds me of the whole debacle around the gun amnesty and the "great" way the police handled that. Don't even get me started on their seriously below average filing and information systems!

here are some complaints about the SAPS that kinda support my point:



I tried to report a misuse of privilege to the SAPS Crimestop line, where a car driving with blue lights and sirens nearly rammed into me on the N1. The funny thing is, I would have understood the situation if there was a crime, but then I saw the same police vehicle not 5 minutes later at McDonalds enjoying a burger. Was the officer so hungry that he needed to use his lights and sirens to buy a burger? I even have a photo taken with my cellphone (before and after) proving the allocations.

Seeing that there is no other way of reporting such misuse, I phoned the SAPS Crimestop line thinking that they would respond to my report. The person on the other end of the line simply laughed at me replying that it is the privilege of the police to use their lights and sirens whenever they choose to do so.


How would crime and corruption stop if citizens try to report such events and simply get laughed off? Disgusting service !

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My moms 1300 slow 1992 chico was stolen and tracked down within minutes by TOP security whom she doesn't even subscribe with. They chased the car till they met up with a metropolice car and it pursued and lost the vehicle.8 days later SAPS finds the car drives it to their car lot somewhere in Benoni and contacts my mom.When she gets there she inspects the vehicle allong with my ex cop couson only to find that SAPS has been helping themselves to several parts of the car.The evidence is clear as theyr tools that they used was still lying under the hood and all the cables/hoses that they cut off was lying next to the car.When my mom confronted the captain he said theres nothing he can do and said she could open the case against the department, another officer there commented that it could take atleast 5 years though. According to my couson, some officers of the so-called law strip cars as they see it as a police officers perc/benefits. The long arm of the law seems to be very short in this country as it helps itself, we need officers that will uphold the law and not abbuse it and when they do they should have captains that would actually give a dam and repremand them!

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Ideally I'd like to trust in the Police force so much that if a van pulled up to me on the street and the cop inside said "get in" I'd know it was for my own good and obey him, not be worried that I was about to be an unwilling participant in a "dog training" exercise. Unfortunately the above comments only strengthen my case. Also they go to show me how police corruption could actually affect me on a personal level, not to mention being shot by an illegal gun that they sold to some criminal.

This all reminds me of another conversation moonflake and I had: There's nothing wrong with totalitarian governments, as long as I'm in charge of them!

Responses? I said this was serious debate!

Anyway, back to the real world, the game last night was fun, I'm sorry we upset zenstar and I promise to only talk when in character or describing my characters actions next week, well as much as is humanly possible.

Looks like the blog is about to tick over to that big 1000, get yer screen capture fingers ready

schpat