One of my new friends is/was a cop. Just found out about it. I genuinely believe ACAB, and this news has me conflicted because my new friend seems really cool and super nice. I don’t know him super well yet, though. He’s a big part of this new friend group and I don’t know how to process this and how to deal with the fact he’s a cop.
I don’t want to look past the fact he’s a cop, but I want to stay his friend and stay in this friend group.
Any advice for dealing with this shit?
I can’t talk to my therapist about it until Thursday.
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That doesn’t mean he’s going to testify against a fellow officer that he sees planting drugs on a suspect.
I work in the medical field. If anyone in my field was fucking around, like cops routinely do, they would be reported and fired faster than the rumour would spread. Our priority is the patient not my coworkers.
Cops, however, are ride or die- the public is just another tribe. ACAB because “good cops” enable every “bad cop”, it’s only a matter of time before every cop faces this challenge and every cop that does the right thing is run out of the department for being a “troublemaker”.
ACAB is cops as a collective. Like, your friend may be a great person when not at work. And may even be ‘one of the good ones’ when on the clock.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to testify against a fellow officer that he sees planting drugs on a suspect.
Totally. Some of the most horrific stories in the Police Problem community is what cops do to their friends and family.
There’s that one cop that won best police officer award and was straight off killing people.
I see some rather extreme responses here and I am pretty radical too but don’t let this shit replace your common sense judgement when dealing with people on personal level.
Use common sense.
Somebody just learned the dangers of broad generalizations
Some people just have shitty jobs. That’s not a necessarily a judgement of them as an individual, it just a fact that they have a shitty job.
Like the Nazis.
Is this person a new friend? Or is this person a cop. Getting to know someone and becoming friends with that person is a relationship. Deciding this person is horrid because they are a cop is superficial. And that person will never be your friend, there is no relationship there. Is this person a Human you want to get to know, or a job title you hate.
With things like cops, you have to remember that if no one with morals goes into it, it’ll keep getting worse.
I have a lot of family that are in some kind of law enforcement, and a couple friends from college that went into it as well.
If you cut them off because they’re cops, then the only people who associate with them are assholes and it concentrates.
Just be upfront about it.
Couple months ago I ran into a friend of a friend from college who’s a cop. The first and last things I said to him was dont be a fucking asshole. Other than that I treated him the same as if he wasn’t a cop.
If we cut that dude out of our lives, the only people he’d talk to would tell him to be more of an asshole.
Like, obviously if he’s doing shady shit, then fuck him.
It sounds like you are the kind of person that can’t comprehend empathy and stepping into other persons shoes. If something doesn’t happen to you you’re sticking to pre canned ideas you heard repeated often enough.
What did you expect, that a cop would show up to a friendly meeting and bully everyone there? That’s not what makes ACAB. it’s the fact that s significant portion of them beat wifes, or use deadly force, or are unfair to minorities.
You’re already going into the mode " he treats me ok so he must be nice to everybody". Ask him if he’d turn a blind eye if a homeless person steals food from a big supermarket, and you’ll have a chance of glimpsing how he deals with problems and people on a non friendly, stressful, low stakes environment.
Every perfect rule has only 1 exception.
If you meet another “good one” know that one of em is lying to you.
But what if ACAB is the one exception to the rule “every perfect rule has only one exception”?
The conundrum of the rule.
I genuinely believe ACAB,
Yeahhhh… No. That’s not true. Being a police officer doesn’t make someone a bad person. Good cops exist.
I was of this conviction until Amsterdam riot cops hunted down protestors like animals and beat them relentlessly, without reason, after they were released from custody, and not a single other cop denounced it.
(Here’s a short compilation of videos taken while it happened, a journalistic video piece and a news article)
You forgot to add “…for a very short time per individual” at the end
The reason ACAB is because a good cop exists in a superposition between resigned and
murderedtragically killed in the line of duty, and the act of reporting a bad cop collapses the waveform.Good cops should prevent bad cops from existing.
There are no good cops.
First of all, I find your phrasing that he “is/was” a cop kind of interesting. Is he a cop or is he not? If he was but is no longer a cop, it could very well be that he left that career because he shares some of your same thoughts and feelings and you’re getting yourself worked up over nothing.
Anyway
To me, ACAB means that all cops are bastards collectively
It does not mean that each individual cop is a bastard.
There are undoubtedly some cops that are good people, doing their damnedest to do the right thing, standing up for the little guy against the bastards, who are trying to make the system better from the inside, who understand the role that policing should be, etc.
And there are of course some who are bastards, who abuse their power and do all of the things that make policing shitty.
And there are cops who aren’t actively bastards themselves, but also aren’t doing anything to make waves and stand up against the bastards.
It’s a case of a few rotten apples spoiling the bunch. The apple barrel has a couple absolutely amazing apples in there that are everything you could ever want from an apple, a whole bunch of meh run-of-the-mill grocery store apples, that do the job of being an apple well enough, but aren’t going to make you stand up and say “holy shit, that’s a good fucking apple,” and then there’s a handful of rotten apples that will make you puke your guts up, and unfortunately you don’t get to pick and choose which apple you’re eating, you just have to reach in blind and take a bite, and since those rotten apples are in there, it’s a pretty big gamble to make, you have to really need that apple for it to be worth it.
However, entering into a friendship is different than other interactions you’d have with the police. You get a chance to inspect the apple before you eat it, to see if it’s good, ok, or rotten to the core.
I’d say don’t dismiss him outright because he’s a cop, but try to feel him out, see what his attitude and philosophy is like, don’t grill him on it, but take note of how he reacts when different subjects are brought up, and if you find something problematic with what he says, try to explain how your views are different in a non-confrontational way, don’t make it a fight or an argument or a debate, just try to explain your thoughts and feelings and try to understand why he thinks the way he does as well. With the right people around him, it’s possible that you could help make him or keep him a good cop when otherwise he might go bad, it’s up to you if you want to take on that task.
i use to work with the police, and many i considered my friends. i know they were good people, but i also knew those on the force that were not.
part of the acab movement is about how the general public can never know which is which, so it is in our best interest to assume we are always facing the worst of the worst. your intimate knowledge of the person can be held separately from the movement.
i do understand that those good cops allowing those bad cops is a huge issue but thats really on them, not you. officers who attempt to ‘fix’ this issue arent officers for very long.
officers who attempt to ‘fix’ this issue arent officers for very long.
I think this is the crux of it. ACAB because any cop with morals and integrity doesn’t keep their job. Those who are left are either monsters or enablers.
Those of you who know me here know I have an interest in sovereign citizens. I’m in a make fun of sovcits group on Facebook, and this one guy I talked to a lot added me as a friend, no big deal, but then he messaged me to tell me he’s a cop in Australia and that he runs into them while working a lot. I think Australian police are likely of higher quality than American police, but I’m still using filters on FB posts.
Can you separate the profession from the person?
Does ACAB mean the people are bastards, or does it mean it’s a job that can never be done ethically?
Is ACAB a critique of the people doing the job, or is it a criticism of our society for tolerating being policed?
Talk to him and if he turns out to be a douche then stop and tell him to fuck off. NGL The Chance for him being a douche is higher because of his Job, but maybe he is not.
Sounds familiar. Keeping things vague, but I know a US cop. Out and proud about voting for the convicted felon rather than the district attorney, not that he could possibly think of it that way.
His kids are grown and I’ve seen evidence they don’t share his views. At least one of those kids is a woman. I take solace in the fact that their votes cancelled his out, even if things have gone his way.
I wouldn’t say he’s a friend, but he’s definitely friend of a friend territory and I’ve “spoken” with him a few times. Carefully. It’s been almost pleasant. Even the ones with their heads on wrong can be personable. Until you get on their bad side.
Because of mutual friends, I can’t avoid him all the time, but if I can, I do.
