Dimas wrote:
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Dimas,

You are correct that you were only providing a description of the officers.  However, for the purposes of this message board the only description necessary was two fully uniformed officers.  Gender and ethnicity were unnecessary to make your point.  Your anger was properly directed given that the two were in full uniform and should be prosecuted to the fullest extent.

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This is what I asked of you in the other thread, but to no avail.  Your previous comments to me illuminated your current commentary.  That was your doing.

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As you know little about me personally, you know even less regarding my blood-lines.  For me to have a problem with minorities would be for me to have a baseless problem with my family and myself.  I'm not into the self-loathing thing.    

dimas wrote on Sep 3^rd, 2005 at 1:56am:

"Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."  

"Are too."

"Mine's bigger."

C'mon guys.  Time to give this a rest.  Everybody has a bit of a bias.  However, one should try to overcome that and treat others as they'd want to be treated themselves -- regardless of race, gender, or shoe size.

Let's kiss and make up and get back to doing what we do best -- exposing the fraud of the century (and how it relates to Law Enforcement and other situations).

I think having a rational discussion around race is relevant; but this dialog on who's less racist (or more racist) is non-constructive.

I think ultimately what this shows is that cops are humans, and a reflection of the communities they serve (and presumabley, the communities they come from).  Much along the same way the military is a cross-section of society.  With many good,  you get some bad (which we know the polygraph is ineffective at fully screening out).

I think the human tragedy of New Orleans is unlike anything our country has seen in over 100 years.  Absolutely amazing.  A few cops have tarnished the reputation of their department.  Much the same way as a few citizens have tarnished the image of the city.

But that's life, and events like this bring out the best in many and the worst in some.  Either way: those people need our help and the police have a very tough job to do.

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I tried to find out how far back the NOPD has been polygraphing and I came up on a news article about a cop from the 70's who had taken the pre-employment polygraph for NOPD.  If they have indeed been polygraphing since then,  one has to wonder WTF happened?   

I found an article relating to a crooked Louisiana cop that was recently busted for some "child predator" charges.  While I am VERY glad this scumbag has been caught, it strikes me as odd that assistant chief of the dept. is actaully bewildered as to "how" this guy made it past their "extensive pre-employment polygraph and background".   

http://www.nola.com/news/t-p/sttammany/index.ssf?/base/news-3/1124866418219740.x...

Well obviously NOPD has demonstrated that the polygraph is not a good tool at eliminating officers who will become corrupt or even at catching them prior to employment.   

Yes, the polygraph is a great tool at eliciting confessions, but it is failing miserably for the NOPD.   

Ultimately, I think the pay structure of the department that is having the undesriable effect.  You get what you pay for and when you don't pay then you get crap officers who breed miscontent and corruption.

In a similar comparison of cities populations close to that of New Orleans (or what it had) one can see the following discrepancy in pay from year 1 to year 30, as well as the cost of living compared to NO.

Austin           42,000-  74,762  +7%
El Paso         30,500-  49,812   -1%
Charlotte      32,214-  52,474   -10%
Memphis       40,500-  47,654    +1%
New Orleans 29,978-  34,797   

As you can clearly see the pay for NO sucks, there is no kind way of putting it.  $30,000 is great money for a 23 year old without a family, but how the heck is a 45 year old with a family supposed to live off of $35,000 with over 20 years in on the force?