Denver Cops Get T-Shirts That Mock DNC Protesters - RawStory

[WillyT]

<snip>

Denver's police union is facing criticism for printing a commemorative T-shirt that makes light of the use of violence by police, particularly in the wake of 154 arrests during the week of Democratic National Convention this past August.

"We get up early, to beat the crowds," the shirt reads, followed by "2008 DNC." The words flank a grinning police officer holding a baton and wearing a hat with a crossed-out number "68," presumably making reference to activist organization Recreate 68, which staged several anti-war demonstrations during the convention.



"The people of Denver were assured by the city that it would respect First Amendment rights during the DNC, and that that police officers were being trained to do so. The actions of police during the DNC, which involved numerous violations of people's right to freedom of speech and assembly, put the lie to those promises," said Recreate 68's Glenn Spagnuolo. "And now this appalling, tasteless t-shirt shows why. The members of Denver's police union clearly have no respect for the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution. The Denver Police Department Operations Manual includes a Law Enforcement Code of Ethics, which begins, 'As a Law Enforcement Officer, my fundamental duty is to serve mankind, to safeguard lives and property, to protect the innocent against deception, the weak against oppression or intimidation, and the peaceful against violence or disorder; and to respect the Constitutional rights of all men to liberty, equality and justice.' The creation of this t-shirt makes a mockery of that statement."

Detective Nick Rogers of the Police Protective Association said that the union predicts sales of about 2,000 shirts in addition to the ones given free to Denver police officers, and also told KMGH that he hadn't received any complaints about the shirt.

<snip>

Link: http://rawstory.com/news/2008/Denver_cops_get_Tshirts_that_mock_0928.html

:mad::nuke::mad:

[BlooInBloo]

1. Worthless Evil Fucking Piece Of Shit COPS.

EDIT: Assuming the story is true.

[BrklynLiberal]

2. "To serve and protect". what a laugh..

[Dangerously Amused]

3. Sweet Jesus, that is F'D UP!

[tblue]

4. And this is "Denver's Finest"?

[msongs]

5. oh c'mon what would jesus do? or would they beat jesus til he went back to mexico? nt

[seabeyond]

6. every cop supporter that gets on du lecturing us. justify this. tell me how wrong i am

i dont trust policeman. tell me why i should just see a few bad apples instead of a whole rotten tree

tell me. i want to know

at what point do you all own up to the problems in our police force so that they can begin to be resolved, or do you just keep making excuses for them

why should a SINGLE american trust our cops

why are the GOOD cops, you tell us a few bad and so so so many GOOD, why arent the good cops saying knock that off my fellow cops, knock that shit off. they dont...

[rgbecker]

10. Right on!

[npk]

18. OK I'll try.

Most police officers I know do respect peoples rights and honor their oath to serve and protect, but of course not every police officer does, and some police, like any human, are bad. That is just a fact of life. But most are good. As for the T-shirt. Most police officers have a weird sense of humor, a sense of humor that most people outside of police work don't understand, and some would even take as offensive. It has to do with the high level of stress that comes with being a cop. It is also a way to break that stress. Police work, and law enforcement in general has one of the highest suicide rates in the country. A police officer I knew for a long time killed himself, because he was unable to stop an innocent boy from being killed in a police pursuit that went through a school zone. He blamed himself and in the end couldn't live with himself. Back to my point sometimes a cop might make a pun of a demonstration, or other incident, that isn't meant to deride or otherwise offend anyone, but is simply making light of that situation to try and ease the stress.

So there, that was my best shot.

[uncle ray]

21. you're right, lot's of stress.

being a civilian in this country is very stressful too, so please don't take it personally when i call cops fascist fucking pigs. it's just a joke to relieve stress. you probably wouldn't understand.

[WillyT]

22. LOL !!!

:rofl:

:thumbsup:

[npk]

26. I'm not a cop, so no offense taken

I'm just saying that being a cop is one profession that quite regularly bring one face to face with people who will and do use force, sometimes deadly force to keep from being arrested. I do believe it is quite naive to say that all cops are fascist fucks. Just my opinion there, you might want to rethink that. Many more good, heroic and decent cops then bad ones. And this comment is not directed at you, but anyone who says "Get rid of all the cops," has surely never been in a situation where their life was on the line, and needed a cop.

[tkmorris]

39. "Many more good, heroic and decent cops then bad ones"

Horseshit. It just isn't true.

It won't ever be true either until those that ARE stand up and smack down those that AREN'T, instead of making excuses for them and sweeping abuses under the rug. In fact you, with your attempt to portray that shirt as "humor" that poor civvies couldn't possibly understand, aren't helping either.

I knew people like this in the military. They seemed to believe that wearing the uniform conferred upon them some sort of special status and insight into their world that outsiders could never get, and used that logic to explain all matter of injustices. They were full of shit.

[npk]

43. Not making excuses for bad cops

Simply asking people not to lump all cops together as fascists fucks. I didn't say one way or the other how I felt about the t-shirt. Every profession, well ok not every profession, but most have inside jokes, humor that only people in that profession would accept. If this t-shirt is given to police officers I don't see any real controversy. Like I said earlier selling it to the public would be wrong, and quite frankly what's the point.

Yes bad cops should be fired, and prosecuted, including those in Denver that violated people's rights.

[seabeyond]

45. but they arent. too too many are getting away with it. too many. and the problem

is growing.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x201199

a naked man tasered to death

we are hearing this too often. it is out of control. it is no longer a few. these people have life and death in their hands. the power. the control. 1 is too many. but it is far far more than one.

[Pastiche423]

44. Excellent!

I'm going to use that too!

[lonestarnot]

29. FAIL!

[npk]

32. Clearly so.

All I can do is try.

[lonestarnot]

40. It's ok, only red Rummy the torturer can defend the position that can never be defended and get away

with it, then there is dick, bushitler, gunsally, and beaver condasleeza, you know the drill. You're not rich enough or powerful enough. Nice try though. :D

[seabeyond]

34. except their actions back their joke. IF this behavior was unacceptable and a clear line from

supervisor. IF the command had tight hand on their officers on expectation and what is and not allowed, then i assure you a whole lot of that stress would be reduced in a number of ways. you worry about the policeman and the tough job that they have. your worry is to excuse the behavior, ignore, dismiss or validate and justify.

i too worry about our police and the tough job they have. i do this thru acknowledging the issue and addressing it.

do you have a concept how much easier and less stress they would have if they actually had guidelines to follow. do you realize this kind of power they hold is so very easy for human nature to exploit and abuse and without commanders of honesty and integrity our very officers are lost.

if they have supporters that dont hold them to standards how lost they become

we need to do it for THEM

screw all of us being treated as animals.

if you really have compassion for these officers, you would want to do it for them

then what happens when the 47 yr old upper middle class white woman begins to respect and support the police agains instead of being angry and distrusting of them.

do you think MAYBE their job MIGHT be a little easier?

[npk]

42. You are right seabeyond

More oversight would solve some of the problems and stress associated with the job. However, the day to day stress that comes with putting your life on the line, for mostly little thanks, and not much pay, is very stressful. Everyone deals with that stress differently. A common way is to make jokes. Now to clear something up, I am not saying I agree with the shirt the Denver Police Union came up with. I simply recognized in an earlier post that is simply one way of officers handling a stressful situation or incident. I think that shirt has an ambiguous meaning attached to it, that should not be sold to the public, but if sold or given to police officers I would not object. First of all I don't know why anyone who is not a Denver police officer would want to buy the shirt, because the shirt obviously implies a message of "we" a fraternity or brotherhood that was a part of a situation. So that part is a little odd to me. But nonetheless I recognize that police officers are not appreciated in much of society and are further loathed on DU, but for every officer I have cursed, there is another officer that is doing the best job he can under the situation, and does take his oath of honoring peoples civil liberties serious.

My brother is a cop in Tampa, FL. But I can take the language on this board directed at officers, it doesn't offend me. I like the people that boast on these boards, and they have ever right to be upset over this issue. But I do recognize that sometimes perception and reality are two very different things. An example is of an encounter I had with a police officer many years ago. I was on my way home from work, a mile from my home. There was a very bad accident at an intersection that was unfortunately blocking the road and keeping me from getting home. Because this was the only route to my home I decided to pull my vehicle over to side of the road and have a conversation with a older officer who was directing traffic. I asked the officer how much longer it was going to be before the road was reopened to traffic. The officer replied, "Don't know, got to get these bodies out of the road first." The officer said this with a grin on his face. I remember at the time thinking "Man that is a shitty thing to say. I mean those people that are dead are somebody's loved ones." Now that statement I took offense to, but as another officer explained to me, "Sometimes we have to make light of our work, otherwise we would explode." As time went by I could understand where that oder cop was coming from.

It just seems on DU a lot of times that god cops and bad cops get lumped together. I just find it amusing sometimes the stuff I read on this website. People will go from defending a terrorist rights, straight into a thread or discussion about the expression of free speech into a tirade of "Fuck all police officers." Sometimes I wonder.

[seabeyond]

46. twice we saw something positive a policeman did. both occassions the officers were disciplined

the two occassions we actually saw the police in a compassionate humanatarian mode, they were disciplined by the higher ups.

one time a cop was arresting a homeless lady. she had a cart of her stuff. she was getting agitated adn upset at the thought of losing all her stuff. the policeman had compassion and held the cart as he drove her in. he got in trouble. for compassion. got the job done without having to taser her to death, but he got in trouble

another was family of ducks crossing the freeway. cops stopped the traffic. he got in trouble until it went viral on net and boss got mass influx of email from people across the nation saying how wonderful it was to see a cop do something nice.

they dont get in trouble for abuse, assault even murder. but they do... for doing right

i am saying, this is a much greater problem then the cop on the street. it is command.

look at the war.... our soldiers under bush have the ok to torture and they do. if command says no then they dont.

[ColbertWatcher]

7. I take it the Chief of Police in Denver is a ditto head? n/t

[seabeyond]

8. RECOMMEND. i want the cop defenders to explain and defend this. n/t

[billyoc]

9. I remember the NYPD chanting "arrest all the protesters" during the RNC in '04.

:wtf:

[Smarmie Doofus]

19. NYC taxpayers have already shelled out millions....

to people wrongly arrested and abused by cops in '04 and will shell out millions more as there are lots of suits still in the pipeline.


I think Bloomberg should pay them out of his own pocket. 1. He set the stage ( invited RNC to NYC); 2. set the tone ( subtly encouraged police misconduct) and 3. is the wealthiest individual in NYC and is therefore better able to absorb the cost than the people unfortunate enough to be governed by him.

[asthmaticeog]

11. Do cops even still wonder why people hate them?

Scum.

[seabeyond]

12. they dont get it. duers dont get it. they are flabberghasted. we are animals, animals to them

treat us like animals and eventually that is exactly what we will become and then god help us all.... cops wont like it any better than we do

[Cid_B]

38. We love you too... nt

[Canuckistanian]

13. Un-fucking-believable

Right in your face, unashamed fascism.

Well, at least the terrorists can't hate us for our freedoms anymore.

[WillyT]

23. THAT... Is A Great Line !!!

May I use it?

:applause:

:hi:

[Canuckistanian]

47. Sure thing

:hi:

[jkshaw]

14. "We get up early, to BEAT the crowds?"

Cute.

[daughter of liberty2]

15. Figures...

Some of the cops here are just bullies with huge egos. They like to jail protesters in Guantanamo like cages.

[satyr9us]

16. I don't like to overuse the word "ironic"...

But the ad at the bottom of this thread-- guilelessly recruiting potential police officers with the image of an intimidating simpleton and the promise of a fat paycheck-- is just rich

[greguganus]

24. What ads?

:shrug:

[lonestarnot]

30. I think they didn't hit the option to turn off the ads.

[gratuitous]

17. The union printed these up?

Sounds like Denver is due and overdue for some major housecleaning.

[BreweryYardRat]

20. Shit like this is what Internal Affairs is supposed to handle.

They should have pounced on this before the T-shirts were even printed, and since they didn't, they need to be housecleaned ahead of the rest of the department.

There are a lot of good cops, but there are also plenty of bad cops. And in Denver, bad cops appear to be in the majority. I'll support good cops, but I'm a great believer in cracking down HARD on bad cops. Most of the Denver PD apparently needs to lose their badges. Same goes for Minneapolis/St. Paul PD, too.

As to why good cops don't stand up against this appalling behavior -- I think (note: I am not a cop) it's partially a case of wanting to make sure that when they call for backup on non-political (the vast majority of) cases, the backup will actually BE THERE in time to help. Or do you really think crooked/authoritarian cops would have any qualms about letting their honest counterparts get killed?

[WillyT]

25. One Word...

Serpico

[lonestarnot]

27. Every one of the fuckers that puts on that NAZI shirt should be fucking fired!

Stupid fuckers! Not only fired locked up for inciting a riot!

[leeroysphitz]

28. I hate pigs. n/t

[intheflow]

31. OK, I live in Denver.

How can I best get the fuckers who designed, printed and bought this shirt as a fundraiser to be fired? Because it's politically partisan and I do NOT want my city taxes going there! :grr: :grr:

[DeltaLitProf]

37. Request to speak at a city board/council meeting

And tell the TV channels ahead of time what you'll be saying.

[Annoyinglysmart]

33. These renegade officers should be disciplined

Or suspended. Our tax-payer funded authorities must not engage in political proselytism.

[Rocknrule]

35. As if there aren't enough Coloradans to be ashamed of

James Dobson, Tom Tancredo, Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold, Matthew Murray, Duane Morrison, Marilyn Musgrave, Dan Caplas, Ted Haggard, Ward Churchill (depending on your POV) and now a good chunk of the Denver police

[donheld]

36. They get up early to beat the crowds...

to the donuts!

[coalition_unwilling]

41. I hope the city of Denver gets the

shit sued out of it and has to pay millions or better yet hundreds of millions to the victims of DPD malfeasance.

Maybe that will wipe the smirks off the Gestapo members' faces.

As Shakespeare put it (in Titus): "Revenge is a dish best served cold."

[WillyT]

48. Morning Kick !!!

:kick: