No, she is in fact exaggerating because if all police just wanted it for the power trip, there’d be more police violence than what there is already in the world.
Point disproven. If they were all in it to do violence, there would have been n survivors of Zucotti Park. You might as well do the same google search and come to the conclusion that all OWS protesters are wannabe rapists.
Inarai
… You don’t grasp the difference between saying “some cops are violent assholes” and “all cops are violent assholes”, yes? The first is valid, the second is stupid and ridiculously easy to disprove (and is, in fact, not an arguable point) – you just have to find one, only one, cop who isn’t a violent asshole, because that demonstrates that not all cops are.
Depends on what part of the world you live in. Most of the good cops I know are military veterans, most of the bad ones I know aren’t.
Remember: not all cops are bad, but all bad cops are cops. I can see why Sal might not trust them.
fellixe
Where they are makes a huge difference. Zuccotti park showcased the worst thugs to wear a badge. Portland P.D. hasn’t had a great reputation but managed to disband a larger occupation without one drop of pepper spray or one rubber bullet. Police departments are like gangs. If most of the gang rolls hard everyone else plays badass to try to fit in.
Professor Zoot
It’s not about Zuccotti Park. It is not about sadism. It is about how the job rewards and punishes cops. Cops are generally rewarded for making arrests and issuing citations. Thus a lot of cops will spend their time issuing as many citations and making as many arrests as they can. Violent crimes are committed, by definition, by people willing to use violence. Cops who are not into violence themselves are frightened of violent people (as most of us are), so the cops who take risks tend to be the most dangerous cops. The cops who aren’t into taking risks, are rewarded for not being reasonable. Thus most of the cops we encounter in their day to day job seem unreasonable and assholes because they are not rewarded in their job to listen to you explain what happened when they are citing you and are not eager to take your report of a crime when the chances of reward are higher doing something else. The cops who make the news are the risk takers and often the ones who use excessive force. We conflate the violent cop (and the corrupt cop) with the asshole cop and are left feeling that cops are not nice people. Cops we know personally are nice people because we know them when they are not being cops and because they know us are willing to give us a little more slack than they are likely to give strangers. It is both a perception problem and an actual disciplinary problem, but there aren’t any clear solutions. (Well, there is the solution of empowering police and our legal system to exercise individual judgement on a case by case basis, but then if a mistake is ever made the public goes ballistic).
Eh, most police these days are kinda getting off on causing harm, and this is coming from a guy who’s friends with a frigging dispatcher.
fellixe
Totally disagree. I think most police departments have someone of that type. But a broad majority of officers are not sadists, though it only takes one to ruin it for many others.
Valdrax
Exactly. Who do you remember most in interacting with any organization — the guys who quietly do their job well or the one flaming asshole?
SlaveBlade
I don’t know about you, but I remember both. So uh, point disproved?
a99steaksauce
I remember the guy that does the courageous act, like successfully saving hostages.
madd
When you say most is where the problems start. Do you know most cops?
I’ve got relatives who are, let’s say on the other side of the law, some of whom I’ve lived with. This kind of ends up with you having to deal with cops from that end of it. I’ve been searched and questioned, not just by cops, but by detectives and narcs. I can honestly say that, while there were some that were snarky and had a an attitude, they were overall very professional in their treatment of me. Of course I’ve heard stories, from gang members, about cops harassing them or dropping them off in “enemy territory”.
There are asshole cops, dirty cops, and cops who get off on pushing people around, there have always been and there likely always will be. That’s no reason to paint all cops with the same brush.
Andrusi
One night this summer, my father, my brother, and I were driving up to what was then my grandparents’ house. The reason for the trip was that my grandfather was in the hospital, dying. We’d gotten a ridiculously late start because that’s just how things work when my dad is involved, and thanks to various circumstances, it was now midnight-ish and none of us had had dinner. So we finally pulled off the interstate at an exit we vaguely remembered having food, and started searching for a restaurant that was still open. My dad, being my dad, was paying way more attention to buildings on the side of the road than to driving, so he had us weaving all over the lanes and then he turned left on a red light (note that I’m in the US, so left turns are the ones that have you driving across every possible lane of oncoming traffic). Naturally there was a police officer nearby, and he pulled us over. My dad explained the situation, and the cop not only let him off with a warning but gave us very specific directions to a still-open Taco Bell none of us had noticed.
Every time someone tells me cops are all big jerks who are always out to get you, I remember that night.
(Granted, everyone in this story is a white dude.)
basically the comment section for this comic is a lesson the the Notion of Privilege and if cops are taught if your demographic is one of the bad ones.
Amazigirl would be the leader, so she would be Leonardo.
Michaelangelo would absolutely be Walky.
For Donatello, I’m thinking Joe, since he knows machines, and he’s also the most experienced with his staff. 😉
And Raph, of course, is Mike.
Like you guys said, Dorothy would be April and Sal would be Casey Jones (woah, did I just suggest a Dorothy/Sal pairing?)
Lessee, who hasn’t been cast? Robin can be Splinter, and Ryan is the Shredder.
Oh crap, did I forget to cast Joyce as somebody? Ok, she can be Irma.
It’s still September of 2011, right? Or have we shifted forward to 2012? Because I want to know if Dorothy is referencing the recent Penn State debacle.
I tihnk she means in general. Because in general, campus authorities are known for trying to keep things from becoming as widely known particularly things that happen amongst students at locations with alcohol.
Which means that in theory if a webcomic goes on for long enough, a character showing off their new top of the range candybar mobile phone on a Tuesday (webcomic time) will end up owning an iPhone 5 by Friday (webcomic time).
DoA takes place in a time-independent frame of reference. I think if you asked Willis he’d say that the background time of any given comic may be when it is published (e.g. Taco Bell specials, pajama jeans), but the comic is almost entirely separate from anything of significance occurring in reality. Also, in-comic time passes at it own pace, where we are currently on Day 7.
It doesn’t really matter – it’s a serious problem on pretty much any campus. the PSU issue deals with minor boys and the college sports system’s corruption. Young women can have a harder time pressing charges – there’s an assumption that some women lie about these things (the false report rate is the same as other crimes), and then the whole case can turn from investigating what the guy did to investigating if the woman has anything unsavory in her past or whatever that may indicate that she’s one of those women. Police generally have an easier time finding things to question young women who go to parties with alcohol than investigating an actual crime.
I wrote and uploaded this particular strip 3 weeks ago, and plotted each character’s take on the subject way earlier, so I’m mostly referencing the stuff I’d read about the subject in preparation for this storyline.
It was really depressing research.
I mean, you can’t really Google stuff like “how long does it take for a roofie to kick in” without feeling like the scum of the earth.
190 thoughts on “Law”
Mkvenner
No she is spot on.
G.S.Mercs
No, she is in fact exaggerating because if all police just wanted it for the power trip, there’d be more police violence than what there is already in the world.
MontyPla
Do a Google news search for “Zucotti Park”.
Doom Shepherd
Point disproven. If they were all in it to do violence, there would have been n survivors of Zucotti Park. You might as well do the same google search and come to the conclusion that all OWS protesters are wannabe rapists.
Inarai
… You don’t grasp the difference between saying “some cops are violent assholes” and “all cops are violent assholes”, yes? The first is valid, the second is stupid and ridiculously easy to disprove (and is, in fact, not an arguable point) – you just have to find one, only one, cop who isn’t a violent asshole, because that demonstrates that not all cops are.
iSaidCandleja-
Depends on what part of the world you live in. Most of the good cops I know are military veterans, most of the bad ones I know aren’t.
Remember: not all cops are bad, but all bad cops are cops. I can see why Sal might not trust them.
fellixe
Where they are makes a huge difference. Zuccotti park showcased the worst thugs to wear a badge. Portland P.D. hasn’t had a great reputation but managed to disband a larger occupation without one drop of pepper spray or one rubber bullet. Police departments are like gangs. If most of the gang rolls hard everyone else plays badass to try to fit in.
Professor Zoot
It’s not about Zuccotti Park. It is not about sadism. It is about how the job rewards and punishes cops. Cops are generally rewarded for making arrests and issuing citations. Thus a lot of cops will spend their time issuing as many citations and making as many arrests as they can. Violent crimes are committed, by definition, by people willing to use violence. Cops who are not into violence themselves are frightened of violent people (as most of us are), so the cops who take risks tend to be the most dangerous cops. The cops who aren’t into taking risks, are rewarded for not being reasonable. Thus most of the cops we encounter in their day to day job seem unreasonable and assholes because they are not rewarded in their job to listen to you explain what happened when they are citing you and are not eager to take your report of a crime when the chances of reward are higher doing something else. The cops who make the news are the risk takers and often the ones who use excessive force. We conflate the violent cop (and the corrupt cop) with the asshole cop and are left feeling that cops are not nice people. Cops we know personally are nice people because we know them when they are not being cops and because they know us are willing to give us a little more slack than they are likely to give strangers. It is both a perception problem and an actual disciplinary problem, but there aren’t any clear solutions. (Well, there is the solution of empowering police and our legal system to exercise individual judgement on a case by case basis, but then if a mistake is ever made the public goes ballistic).
turkishproverb
Eh, most police these days are kinda getting off on causing harm, and this is coming from a guy who’s friends with a frigging dispatcher.
fellixe
Totally disagree. I think most police departments have someone of that type. But a broad majority of officers are not sadists, though it only takes one to ruin it for many others.
Valdrax
Exactly. Who do you remember most in interacting with any organization — the guys who quietly do their job well or the one flaming asshole?
SlaveBlade
I don’t know about you, but I remember both. So uh, point disproved?
a99steaksauce
I remember the guy that does the courageous act, like successfully saving hostages.
madd
When you say most is where the problems start. Do you know most cops?
I’ve got relatives who are, let’s say on the other side of the law, some of whom I’ve lived with. This kind of ends up with you having to deal with cops from that end of it. I’ve been searched and questioned, not just by cops, but by detectives and narcs. I can honestly say that, while there were some that were snarky and had a an attitude, they were overall very professional in their treatment of me. Of course I’ve heard stories, from gang members, about cops harassing them or dropping them off in “enemy territory”.
There are asshole cops, dirty cops, and cops who get off on pushing people around, there have always been and there likely always will be. That’s no reason to paint all cops with the same brush.
Andrusi
One night this summer, my father, my brother, and I were driving up to what was then my grandparents’ house. The reason for the trip was that my grandfather was in the hospital, dying. We’d gotten a ridiculously late start because that’s just how things work when my dad is involved, and thanks to various circumstances, it was now midnight-ish and none of us had had dinner. So we finally pulled off the interstate at an exit we vaguely remembered having food, and started searching for a restaurant that was still open. My dad, being my dad, was paying way more attention to buildings on the side of the road than to driving, so he had us weaving all over the lanes and then he turned left on a red light (note that I’m in the US, so left turns are the ones that have you driving across every possible lane of oncoming traffic). Naturally there was a police officer nearby, and he pulled us over. My dad explained the situation, and the cop not only let him off with a warning but gave us very specific directions to a still-open Taco Bell none of us had noticed.
Every time someone tells me cops are all big jerks who are always out to get you, I remember that night.
(Granted, everyone in this story is a white dude.)
Mkvenner
Oh she was refering to the police. I thought she was talking about Ryan.
ThatGuy
basically the comment section for this comic is a lesson the the Notion of Privilege and if cops are taught if your demographic is one of the bad ones.
Wandering Meme
My take? “people’s people.”
In uniform and out. we ain’t all a homogenized bunch, cop or no.
And frankly, very few people believe in “enlightened self interest”.
G.S.Mercs
Oh, Billie. Ever the pragmatist. On a completely different note, imagine Sal and Amazi-girl fighting crime as rival heroes.
AliaPie
…Oh my god. I hope that happens.
Plasma Mongoose
I can totally see Sal as the Casey Jones(TMNT) type of vigilante.
Jacob
Ah, so not the type the drives trains while high on cocaine.
Wandering Meme
then who’s April O’Neal?
………
……… It’s WALKY!
madd
That’s kind of disturbing, seeing as Case and April had a thing. I vote Dorothy, she is a reporter after all.
Plasma Mongoose
All Dotty needs out is a yellow jumpsuit.
Wandering Meme
Or yellow jean pants!
lightsabermario
Amazigirl would be the leader, so she would be Leonardo.
Michaelangelo would absolutely be Walky.
For Donatello, I’m thinking Joe, since he knows machines, and he’s also the most experienced with his staff. 😉
And Raph, of course, is Mike.
Like you guys said, Dorothy would be April and Sal would be Casey Jones (woah, did I just suggest a Dorothy/Sal pairing?)
Lessee, who hasn’t been cast? Robin can be Splinter, and Ryan is the Shredder.
Oh crap, did I forget to cast Joyce as somebody? Ok, she can be Irma.
Aizat
Bat-Sal and Amazi-Girl? That’s a great idea.
a99steaksauce
I can envision it now… CAT FIGHTS EVERYWHERE! Am I right? :D)
a99steaksauce
That smile was supposed to be double chinned. Damned emotocon auto smiles.
Blob Marley
I believe you were searching for this?
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Tsundere
a99steaksauce
how does wanting a smiley face with an extra chin (imagine a guy with a fatty neck) relate to a fictional characteristic of anime characters?
Jen Aside
“Trust me, ah have plenty of experience with this kinda stuff.”
“Going to bed?”
David Herbert
And then Walky throws up from the mental image of his sister banging dudes.
Joraiem
Banging dudes? I was thinking she was banging Billie.
iSaidCandleja-
Is Marcy okay with that?
Plasma Mongoose
Marcie is banging Billie?
OH MY!
Joraiem
Let’s face it, Billie is the neighborhood bike.
Plasma Mongoose
Sal rides her like she’s a hog.
Kernanator
VROOM, VROOM!
Plasma Mongoose
When Sal doesn’t feel like riding her like a motorbike, she can choose to ‘motorboat’ her instead.
Roborat
Funny, this is the second webcomic forum today where I have seen the neighbourhood bicycle comment, and I had never heard this term before.
Plasma Mongoose
The term ‘town bike’ exists because as the name implies, everyone has rode her.
Henry
Either way, it’s disturbing if Walky is the one visualizing it.
David Herbert
Next time you see Ryan, turn him into a pinata!
Plasma Mongoose
Would you need to feed him lots of candy first?
NakedDumblydore
Yup. It’ll be like Se7en in Mexico. Sie7e!
fellixe
I’m impressed how well that works.
Aizat
No, knock him out and give him the cement tennis shoes and then push him down a lake.
Plasma Mongoose
That might make it hard to use him as a pinata if you did that.
Zanosuke_Kurosaki
Being a pinata is more dignity than he deserves.
madd
Aquatic T-Ball League?
A. Colunga
Wearing your underwear on the outside does tend to lead to thoughts of vigilante justice.
Confuzor
So Sal’s already got the upper hand!?
Plasma Mongoose
You can’t trust The Man.
Wazat
I’d just like to point out that Sal is still in her undies right now. I think we should hear her out.
Wackd
It’s still September of 2011, right? Or have we shifted forward to 2012? Because I want to know if Dorothy is referencing the recent Penn State debacle.
iSaidCandleja-
I tihnk she means in general. Because in general, campus authorities are known for trying to keep things from becoming as widely known particularly things that happen amongst students at locations with alcohol.
Rognik
In universe time is September of 20XX. I believe it was stated somewhere that the strip will be unanchored from real world time.
Plasma Mongoose
Which means that in theory if a webcomic goes on for long enough, a character showing off their new top of the range candybar mobile phone on a Tuesday (webcomic time) will end up owning an iPhone 5 by Friday (webcomic time).
ryan
so that means mega man is out there fighting evil robots, right?
begbert2
Yes, though he’s not fighting aliens. It’s been stated that there are no aliens in this continuity.
lightsabermario
Dr. Wily is not an alien.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IV0T-qK3ZA
NF
DoA takes place in a time-independent frame of reference. I think if you asked Willis he’d say that the background time of any given comic may be when it is published (e.g. Taco Bell specials, pajama jeans), but the comic is almost entirely separate from anything of significance occurring in reality. Also, in-comic time passes at it own pace, where we are currently on Day 7.
R
It doesn’t really matter – it’s a serious problem on pretty much any campus. the PSU issue deals with minor boys and the college sports system’s corruption. Young women can have a harder time pressing charges – there’s an assumption that some women lie about these things (the false report rate is the same as other crimes), and then the whole case can turn from investigating what the guy did to investigating if the woman has anything unsavory in her past or whatever that may indicate that she’s one of those women. Police generally have an easier time finding things to question young women who go to parties with alcohol than investigating an actual crime.
David
I wrote and uploaded this particular strip 3 weeks ago, and plotted each character’s take on the subject way earlier, so I’m mostly referencing the stuff I’d read about the subject in preparation for this storyline.
It was really depressing research.
I mean, you can’t really Google stuff like “how long does it take for a roofie to kick in” without feeling like the scum of the earth.
aliencowthatmoos
Also I’ll bet Google puts you on a special list.
aaron_bourque
The “This guy’s got potential” list.
aaron_bourque
Hey, if Joe’s gonna turn all my comments into dirty innuendo laden comments anyway, I might as well oblige!
a99steaksauce
here here buddy.
madd
Probably not just Google.
Valdrax