Don't get me wrong, I hear you. I am sure podunk and beachside departments have nothing better to do. I lived on Long Island until 10 years ago and had a couple friends who were NYPD. Absolutely at that time they were heavy after the "quality of life" policing of staying in the areas where the low level street dealers were just as much as getting the guys ****ing on the street coming out of the bar. I am sure with the new administration and rules the times have changed there since I left.
As for your personal experiences with getting yanked...I no doubt believe that happens. I personally wasnt that kind of cop...and 9 out of 10 of the ones I worked with weren't like that. It sucks...but some departments police themselves better than others.
Not just the podunk towns. I work with tons of guys who live in the wealthy CT, NJ, NY, and PA suburbs. The type of towns where a 2000 square foot house is going to be well over a million. These towns have virtually 0 real crime and the cops literally celebrate "drug busts" of 100 dollars worth of weed. We were all laughing at the office a couple months ago because the local PD facebook posted about how they removed some drug dealers from their town and posted the picture of the bust. It was a grinder, some cheap cigars(used to roll the weed with), a pack of joint papers, and an eighth of weed(street value 40 dollars). Tons of cops the coworker was friends with were sharing the image on FB. Busting "drug dealers" is going to help you get promotions quicker than just pulling over speeders. It is also going to help when you request more funding for more weaponry and the like.
To be clear. I don't even have an issue with it. They are just doing their job and it is still illegal. I am not one of those guys grumbling about how these guys are ruining peoples lives for a plant. I am simply stating the police are benefiting from it being illegal because for the many reasons I mentioned before. Such as police in states with legal weed are now risking their lives much more frequently going after more violent offenders instead of the wealthy marijuana buyers who would never dare try to resist.
As for your last statement. I am happy to hear you were one of the good ones, but I am not exaggerating when I say I have had this happen to me over 40 times. Not once have I got hit with a ticket. This is exactly how it happens.Keep in mind I am not driving around in a old school chevy on giant rims, or in a tinted out escalade, or some **** box honda civic. It is a new model Mercedes E Class 4 door which is VERY common in my area.
I will be driving down the road and a cop will spot me. He will follow me for anywhere between 1-4 minutes. Then the lights come on.
Cop: Do you know what I pulled you over for
me: no sir
I get one of these answers
Cop: "You were swerving", "you crossed the yellow line", "you were driving to close to the curb". Which I will be totally honest is complete BS. They just wanted an excuse to pull me over.
He then asks for license and registration which I give him.
Cop goes back to his car sees I have no warrants(never been arrested in my life) sees I have 0 points on my license and have never gotten a ticket before.
He then returns to my vehicle and mentions it smells like marijuana and I am to step out of the vehicle.
The first couple of times I laughed and tried explaining that it clearly doesn't smell like anything(one time I was literally driving the car back from the dealership). This leads to the officers getting angry and demanding I step out of the vehicle. Because I don't like being around an angry person with a gun, who has the "I killed him because he was resisting excuse" I now never argue. I simply get out of the vehicle and let them search. Also, when I argue about the smell it usually results in whatever food I have in the car getting dumped all over my interior and then stepped on while he continues to "search" my vehicle. When I don't argue it gets dumped outside of my car.
After the search continues they tell me they aren't going to give me the unsafe driving ticket and will let me off with a warning, which is nice because it is my word against theirs if I was swerving and their word is going to win every time.
Anyway, this is not an isolated incident. This happens to all of my friends as well, the darker they are the more frequently it happens, but it also seems to happen to my white friends when they are driving through hispanic/black neighborhoods. it is possible 9 out of 10 are good ones and all of us just happen to only interact with the 10%(which is doubtful) or the more likely scenario is our definition of "bad cop" is different.
I think a "bad cop" is someone who breaks the rules in order to get arrests, someone who gets angry about people trying to use their rights and in turn does things like squash a box of chocolates on his floor under the guise of searching the vehicle, someone who pulls people over because of their skin color. That is what I consider a bad cop. I also consider the cops who witness these things and does not report them to be bad cops as well.
I assume your definition of bad cop is the type of cop who just got arrested in Paterson NJ for beating up a suicidal victim in the hospital and also dealing drugs out of his patrol car.
I have no problem with your idea of bad cop and respect your opinion. I just wanted to explain what I think is a bad cop so you can see why, under my definition, a lot more than 10% of cops are "bad".