Should you be allowed to rate public servants?

Okay, so a funny thing happened the other day. My husband, who has what can truthfully be described as “funny hair” (I think it’s totally cool, myself), was driving down the road and got pulled over. The cop asked him to step out of the vehicle, at which point my lovely boy replied, “Are you asking to search my vehicle, sir?”

The cop sez, “Maybe.”

Wonderful funny-haired husband replies, “Because I have no problem stepping out of the vehicle, or allowing you to search me to ascertain your safety, but if you’re asking to search my vehicle, then I’m going to assert my fourth-amendment rights and ask you to obtain a warrant.”

Long pause.

Finally cop sez, “Just get the f*ck out of here.” And leaves.

Now, if there was a legitimate reason to pull my husband over, say, because he was speeding or had a busted taillight or something, wouldn’t the cop have stayed to write a ticket? More importantly, does it interest you that there are active-duty police officers out there who flee at the very mention of your fourth-amendment rights, all but waving a flag announcing that they were planning to violate them?

What if this were a cop in your hometown, or close to it? Would it interest you then?

I won’t hesitate to say that it interests ME. I’ve had my share of awful run-ins with cops flagrantly flaunting their power, obviously confident that they could do whatever they hell they wanted because they were never going to get caught and even if they did, it’s “your word against theirs.” Because necessarily, a cop is a better person than you…right?

Want to try a fun experiment? Tape-record or videotape your next encounter with a cop. Any encounter — simple traffic stops are fine. Or rather, try to. Because in every case I’ve ever seen or heard of, the cop will freak out and basically refuse to do anything while the tape/camera is rolling. Oh, um, don’t try this with a good recorder — I’ve seen them get broken and/or stolen more than once, trying this stunt.

Well, here’s an interesting idea: If you search Google for the terms “rate company”, you get about 13 million hits. If you searched for “rate cops”, you would have gotten a hit for RateMyCop.com — that is, until GoDaddy pulled the plug on them earlier this week, due to–just guess–strenuous protests from cops. (Note: They seem to have it back up by now…for how long remains to be seen.)

So, if nobody bats an eye at letting the public rate private corporations with which they deal financially, then why the big stink over letting them rate public servants in whose hands they frequently put their lives, and their freedoms?

The cops, of course, say it “puts their lives in danger”, which is a stock cop response for everything from requiring them to not engage in high-speed chases in quiet neighborhoods to asking them to please not run traffic lights unless they can prove they had to. In this case, the site uses names and sometimes badge numbers — information that any citizen is supposed to be able to have from a cop whenever they request it — but not pictures or personal information. It also doesn’t include undercover cops at all; only uniformed officers. So where’s the danger? A California police chief did speak up with a reason that sounds more likely — they’re worried about “unfair maligning”. To which the site’s owners say hey, cops are free to comment too.

It’ll be interesting to see how this plays out. You can read an article about RateMyCop’s takedown here, or of course, visit the site itself.

…

HOLY COW UPDATE: The same cop pulled my husband over again today! And he was very obvious that he was only doing it to harass. But my boy and I had just discussed RateMyCop this morning, so what do you think he (my boy) did? He told the cop to hand over his name and badge number, “because I want to post about this on RateMyCop.com”.

The cop had almost certainly never heard of the site, but once again, he went pale and went away without incident. See what even the threat of accountability does?? (BIG thanks to my boy for unwittingly providing such an interesting case for discussing this topic, heh.) …Of course, whether we never hear from that cop again, or he becomes a serious problem, is still up in the air. It’s a county Sheriff boy, and they’re generally pretty awful because, as I understand it, part of the qualification to get that job is that you have to have been a *prison guard* — eek. Because guarding convicts is such wonderful real-world practice for protecting and serving the public…

Anyway, that’s enough babble from me for today. Back to my ginger tea and kleenex…