You love when they do that because you take what they say literally. As if anyone actually believes there are rapes and murders going on within earshot of the arresting officer as he is being a *****ebag.
Most of the time, yes, people say what they literally mean. I love when they do this because it's hilarious. It's an elementary school response to something with a lot more gray areas than anyone considers. And it's usually uttered by those who got caught doing something wrong, and want to whine about it.
As any idiot could infer, the point is not that a cop is ignoring more serious crimes to focus on the lesser one, its that people with as much power in their hands as policeman should have perspective when dealing with insignificant crimes like this. Is drinking underage and lying about it illegal? Yes. So is jaywalking. And speeding. But these are passive laws and passive crimes that are normally harmless.
I see.
So I'm to infer that this whole bit about discretion...is your argument...
From this:
Gee I don't know, arresting robbers, drug-dealers, rapists, killers, arsonists, etc. etc. etc. who are all 100x more dangerous to society than some scared kid sipping a beer outside his apartment.
Where you make a very distinct statement that is not at all in the context of police discretion, but rather, about what "better" things cops have to do.
So you don't say what you mean, then?
Because while I can certainly reason this out in a logical sense, that you might well feel this way, I'm not in the habit of simply assuming how someone feels about police discretion based on them making statements about whether or not cops have better things to do with their time.
Nor am I, in general, in the habit of responding to or assessing statements people don't make.
Unless someone is abusing these laws recklessly and actually putting people in danger, arresting them is not going to make society a safer place. Its just going to waste the judge's time and the defendants money. And he's still not going to stop drinking, anymore than he would stop speeding if arrested for 5mph over. In the end, all it does is piss people off and waste their time.
I agree, to a point.
It's not always about making society a safer place for an officer. It's about upholding the law. That's their job. We can debate the laws all day, and the punishments for various lawbreaking, but at the end of the day, it's an officer's job to uphold those laws.
Though in this respect, it made the city some money in theory, and hopefully taught chaseter a valuable lesson about being an idiot when dealing with police officers.
