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6c0bab0 "No! Please! I'll tell you whatever you want to know!" the man yelled. "Really?" said Vimes. "What's the orbital velocity of the moon?" "What?" "Oh, you'd like something simpler?" humor interrogation police Terry Pratchett
ff113bc I get it,' said the prisoner. 'Good Cop, Bad Cop, eh?' If you like.' said Vimes. 'But we're a bit short staffed here, so if I give you a cigarette would you mind kicking yourself in the teeth? violence interrogation police Terry Pratchett
0ab7cf9 You may have heard the talk of diversity, sensitivity training, and body cameras. These are all fine and applicable, but they understate the task and allow the citizens of this country to pretend that there is real distance between their own attitudes and those of the ones appointed to protect them. The truth is that the police reflect America in all of its will and fear, and whatever we might make of this country's criminal justice policy, it cannot be said that it was imposed by a repressive minority. The abuses that have followed from these policies--the sprawling carceral state, the random detention of black people, the torture of suspects--are the product of democratic will. And so to challenge the police is to challenge the American people who send them into the ghettos armed with the same self-generated fears that compelled the people who think they are white to flee the cities and into the Dream. The problem with the police is not that they are fascist pigs but that our country is ruled by majoritarian pigs. racism america united-states-of-america blacks whites police-reform usa united-states race-relations police Ta-Nehisi Coates
076b243 I was astonished, bewildered. This was America, a country where, whatever its faults, people could speak, write, assemble, demonstrate without fear. It was in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights. We were a democracy... But I knew it wasn't a dream; there was a painful lump on the side of my head... The state and its police were not neutral referees in a society of contending interests. They were on the side of the rich and powerful. Free speech? Try it and the police will be there with their horses, their clubs, their guns, to stop you. From that moment on, I was no longer a liberal, a believer in the self-correcting character of American democracy. I was a radical, believing that something fundamental was wrong in this country--not just the existence of poverty amidst great wealth, not just the horrible treatment of black people, but something rotten at the root. The situation required not just a new president or new laws, but an uprooting of the old order, the introduction of a new kind of society--cooperative, peaceful, egalitarian. injustice bill-of-rights failed-liberalism power-interests first-amendment radical-politics egalitarianism usa authoritarianism constitution democracy free-speech police Howard Zinn
b0ea433 He just waited until I stopped talking and said, 'Jesus, kid, you're almost a detective. All you need now is a gun, a gut, and three ex-wives. So what's your theory? sarcasm police John Green
5456bd7 Police business is a hell of a problem. It's a good deal like politics. It asks for the highest type of men, and there's nothing in it to attract the highest type of men. So we have to work with what we get... politics reality police Raymond Chandler
f34d028 "Yeah, all right, but everyone knows they torture people," mumbled Sam. "Do they?" said Vimes. "Then why doesn't anyone do anything about it?" "'cos they torture people." vimes pratchett torture police Terry Pratchett
5cef7f8 Very often the test of one's allegiance to a cause or to a people is precisely the willingness to stay the course when things are boring, to run the risk of repeating an old argument just one more time, or of going one more round with a hostile or (much worse) indifferent audience. I first became involved with the Czech opposition in 1968 when it was an intoxicating and celebrated cause. Then, during the depressing 1970s and 1980s I was a member of a routine committee that tried with limited success to help the reduced forces of Czech dissent to stay nourished (and published). The most pregnant moment of that commitment was one that I managed to miss at the time: I passed an afternoon with Zdenek Mlynar, exiled former secretary of the Czech Communist Party, who in the bleak early 1950s in Moscow had formed a friendship with a young Russian militant with an evident sense of irony named Mikhail Sergeyevitch Gorbachev. In 1988 I was arrested in Prague for attending a meeting of one of Vaclav Havel's 'Charter 77' committees. That outwardly exciting experience was interesting precisely because of its almost Zen-like tedium. I had gone to Prague determined to be the first visiting writer not to make use of the name Franz Kafka, but the numbing bureaucracy got the better of me. When I asked why I was being detained, I was told that I had no need to know the reason! Totalitarianism is itself a cliche (as well as a of pulverizing boredom) and it forced the cliche upon me in turn. I did have to mention Kafka in my eventual story. The regime fell not very much later, as I had slightly foreseen in that same piece that it would. (I had happened to notice that the young Czechs arrested with us were not at all frightened by the police, as their older mentors had been and still were, and also that the police themselves were almost fatigued by their job. This was totalitarianism practically yawning itself to death.) A couple of years after that I was overcome to be invited to an official reception in Prague, to thank those who had been consistent friends through the stultifying years of what 'The Party' had so perfectly termed 'normalization.' As with my tiny moment with Nelson Mandela, a whole historic stretch of nothingness and depression, combined with the long and deep insult of having to be pushed around by boring and mediocre people, could be at least partially canceled and annealed by one flash of humor and charm and generosity. irony history humour politics 1968 1970s 1980s 1988 allegiance arrest bad-crowds charter-77 gorbachev kafka nelson-mandela vaclav-havel zdenek-mlynar prague moscow czechoslovakia arguments exile commitment bureaucracy boredom clichés generosity dissent totalitarianism detention mediocrity charm russia communism loyalty police Christopher Hitchens
34b3800 Police are inevitably corrupted. ... Police always observe that criminals prosper. It takes a pretty dull policeman to miss the fact that the position of authority is the most prosperous criminal position available. injustice criminals police Frank Herbert
4b9494e It's a truism in policing that witnesses and statements are fine, but nothing beats empirical physical evidence. Actually it isn't a truism because most policemen think the word 'empirical' is something to do with Darth Vader, but it damn well should be. police Ben Aaronovitch
0f7de3d If the system turns away from the abuses inflicted on the guilty, then who can be next but the innocents? injustice system innocence justice police Michael Connelly
70eade6 Until you guys own your own souls you don't own mine. Until you guys can be trusted every time and always, in all times and conditions, to seek the truth out and find it and let the chips fall where they may--until that time comes, I have the right to listen to my conscience, and protect my client the best way I can. Until I'm sure you won't do him more harm than you'll do the truth good. Or until I'm hauled before somebody that can make me talk. trust truth interrogation police Raymond Chandler
3a98ab3 "I know, Ma. I'm a-tryin'. But them deputies- Did you ever see a deputy that didn't have a fat ass? An' they waggle their ass an' flop their gun aroun'. Ma", he said, "if it was the law they was workin' with, why we could take it. But it ain't the law. They're a-working away at our spirits. They're a-tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They're tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're working on our decency"." law police John Steinbeck
2a742c7 I'm not a natural peacekeeping sam-vimes police Terry Pratchett
da9d559 "I know, Ma. I'm a-tryin'. But them deputies- Did you ever see a deputy that didn't have a fat ass? An' they waggle their ass an' flop their gun aroun'. Ma", he said, "if it was the law they was workin' with, why we could take it. But it ain't the law. They're a-working away at our spirits. They're a-tryin' to make us cringe an' crawl like a whipped bitch. They're tryin' to break us. Why, Jesus Christ, Ma, they comes a time when the on'y way a fella can keep his decency is by takin' a sock at a cop. They're working on our decency"." -- law police John Steinbeck
3b77a79 "There were a lot of things he could say. "Son of a bitch!" would have been a good one. Or he could say, "Welcome to civilization!" He could have said, "Laugh this one off!" He might have said, "Fetch!" But he didn't, because if he had said any of those things then he'd have known that what he had just done was murder." murder police Terry Pratchett
a1f369a It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen's point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps? suicide police Franz Kafka
4430b73 "Fresh wounds," said Angua. "But one of them did shoot one of the other in the leg by accident." "I think you'd better put in your report as -self inflicted- wounds while resisting arrest," said Vimes." police Terry Pratchett
514561c Every time I think of Tim Leary I get angry. He was a liar and a quack and a worse human being than Richard Nixon. For the last twenty-six years of his life he worked as an informant for the FBI and turned his friends into the police and betrayed the peace symbol he hid behind. hunter-s-thompson timothy-leary fbi betrayal police Hunter S. Thompson
bdc08af [J.Lo] found us a police car. Sort of. 'It's not a police car,' I said. 'It is,' said J.Lo. 'Looknow. Lights for flashing.' 'That's true.' 'Writing on the sides.' 'Yeah, but the writing? It says ''BullShake Party Patrol.'' Yes. Whatnow? red-bull car police Adam Rex
50cd847 I'm a strict materialist - but the police are brutal materialists. police Jack Williamson
98a922c "They put spotlights on me standing there in the road in jeans and workclothes, with the big woeful rucksack a-back, and asked:-"Where are you going?" which is precisely what they asked me a year later under Television floodlights in New York, "Where are you going?"-Just as you cant explain to the police, you cant explain to society "Looking for peace." religion society peace police Jack Kerouac
4e4ad66 Most people are like sheep. Nice, harmless creatures who want nothing more than to be left alone so they can graze. But then of course there are wolves. Who want nothing more than to eat the sheep. But there's a third kind of person. The sheepdog. Sheepdogs have fangs like wolves. But their instinct isn't predation. It's protection. All they want, what they live for, is to protect the flock. philosophy sheepdog predation sheep wolves protect police Barry Eisler
681696d But I was naturally suspicious; it comes from working too closely with the police for too long. Cynicism is so contagious. suspicious police Laurell K. Hamilton
4032d13 "You are hereby warned that any movement on your part not explicitly endorsed by verbal authorization on my part may pose a direct physical risk to you, as well as consequential psychological and possibly, depending on your personal belief system, spiritual risks ensuing from your personal reaction to said physical risk. Any movement on your part constitutes an implicit and irrevocable acceptance of such risk," the first MetaCop says. There is a little speaker on his belt, simultaneously translating all of this into Spanish and Japanese. "Or as we used to say," the other MetaCop says, "freeze, sucker!" "Under provisions of The Mews at Windsor Heights Code, we are authorized to enforce law, national security concerns, and societal harmony on said territory also. A treaty between The Mews at Windsor Heights and White Columns authorizes us to place you in temporary custody until your status as an Investigatory Focus has been resolved." "Your ass is busted," the second MetaCop says. "As your demeanor has been nonaggressive and you carry no visible weapons, we are not authorized to employ heroic measures to ensure your cooperation," the first MetaCop says. "You stay cool and we'll stay cool," the second MetaCop says. "However, we are equipped with devices, including but not limited to projectile weapons, which, if used, may pose an extreme and immediate threat to your health and well-being." "Make one funny move and we'll blow your head off," the second MetaCop says." funny police Neal Stephenson
34f7124 He didn't know the right people. That's all a police record means in this rotten crime-ridden country. politics police Raymond Chandler
0c0226e She had the startled-rabbit look that civilians get after five minutes of helping the police with their inquiries. If they stay calm for too long it's a sign that they're professional villains or foreign or just plain stupid. All of which can get you locked up if you're not careful. If you find yourself talking to the police, my advice is to stay calm but look guilty; it's your safest bet. police Ben Aaronovitch
d102013 Maybe this is what it feels like for civilians when they see cops doing some of the dirty work. A lot of times they don't understand what's happening. They see something they don't like and it upsets them--because they don't have the full story, aren't personally facing the problem, and don't know how much worse the alternative could be. detectives mystery crime police Jim Butcher
002c499 "Then the bandit turned tail and broke for the open. Greeley hit the sidewalk only seconds after him, big as he was and with a panic-stricken woman to detour around. A slice of hindmost heel was all he saw of the man. The store entrance adjoined a corner; that gave the fugitive a few added seconds of shelter, and as Greeley flashed around it in turn, again the breaks were the lawbreaker's. There was a school midway up the street toward the next avenue. It was a couple of minutes past three now, and a torrent of young humanity came pouring out of the building by every staircase and exit, flooding the street. In through them the sprinting man plunged, knocking over right and left the ones that didn't get out of his way quickly enough. If it had been hazardous to take a shot at him in the store, it would have been criminal out here. The kids parted, screaming in delighted excitement, as Greeley tore through them after the bandit with uptilted gun, but he couldn't just callously knock them flat like the man before him had. He sidestepped, got out of their way as often as they did his, and he began to fall behind the other, lose ground. The kids weren't just on that one street - they had dispersed over the entire vicinity by now, for a radius of a block or more in every direction, in frisky, milling, homeward-bound groups. Through them the quarry zigzagged, pulling slowly but surely away. He kept going in a straight line, because it was to his advantage to do so - the presence of these kids made for greater safety - but he was already far enough in the lead so that when he should finally decide to turn off - the answer was pretty obvious; a taxi or a doorway or a basement. Any of them would do. ("Detective William Brown")" burglary cops footchase chase police Cornell Woolrich
29eb011 There was also a great absence of people, including behind the mahogany-topped reception desk. Now, there's a time when an unlocked premises is a positive boon to a police officer as in - police Ben Aaronovitch
1efda71 Or was Chris thinking, as I was, that if we went to the police and told our story, our faces would be splashed on the front pages of every newspaper in the country? Would the glare of publicity make up for what we'd lose? Our privacy-our need to stay together? Could we lose each other just to get even? story front-page newpaper faces lose together privacy newspapers thinking police stories V.C. Andrews
a28eb85 I dreaded an invasion of ghosts or, less likely, an invasion of the police. police Adolfo Bioy Casares
3dae2d1 They found records and video-cassettes at their place, a deck of cards, a chess set. In other words, everything that's banned. fear iran iranian-revolution secret-police censorship police Marjane Satrapi
3ebec55 It's like this with us baby. We're coppers and everybody hates our guts....nothing we do is right, not ever. If we get a confession we beat it out of a guy, they say, and some shyster lawyer calls us Gestapo. society-thinking cynicism crime police Raymond Chandler
e8b1eee It's goddamned funny in this police racket how an old woman can look out of a window and see a guy running and pick him out of a line-up six months later, but we can show hotel help a clear photo and they just can't be sure.' 'That's one of the qualifications for good hotel help,' I said. identification mystery police Raymond Chandler
1ff56e5 Well, George Anson Phillips is a kind of pathetic case... He was the sort of cop who would be likely to hang a pinch on a chicken thief, if he saw the guy steal the chicken and the guy fell down running away and hit his head on a post or something and knocked himself out. Otherwise it might get a little tough and George would have to go back to the office for instructions. detective-fiction police Raymond Chandler
d00da30 "I saw her sign the register, but her name isn't on it any more. The bellboy says he never saw her. Now they've got me so I'm scared and shaky, like a little kid is of the dark. I want you men to help me. Won't you men help me?' 'We'll help you' - said the lieutenant in charge. Slowly, awfully slowly; I didn't like that slowness - 'if we're able to.' And I knew what he meant; if we find any evidence that your story is true. ("All At Once, No Alice")" evidence police Cornell Woolrich
b882bee The police can use violence to say, expel citizens from a public park because they are enforcing duly constituted laws. Laws gain their legitimacy from the Constitution. The Constitution gains its legitimacy from something called 'the people.' But how did 'the people' actually grant legitimacy to the Constitution? As the American and French revolutions make clear: basically, through acts of illegal violence. So what gives the police the right to use force to suppress the very thing-a popular uprising-that granted them their right to use force to begin with? violence politics society rights democracy police David Graeber
eace725 "In Woolrich's crime fiction there is a gradual development from pulp to noir. The earlier a story, the more likely it stresses pulp elements: one-dimensional macho protagonists, preposterous methods of murder, hordes of cardboard gangsters, dialogue full of whiny insults, blistering fast action. But even in some of his earliest crime stories one finds aspects of noir, and over time the stream works itself pure. In mature Woolrich the world is an incomprehensible place where beams happen to fall, and are predestined to fall, and are toppled over by malevolent powers; a world ruled by chance, fate and God the malign thug. But the everyday life he portrays is just as terrifying and treacherous. The dominant economic reality is the Depression, which for Woolrich usually means a frightened little guy in a rundown apartment with a hungry wife and children, no money, no job, and desperation eating him like a cancer. The dominant political reality is a police force made up of a few decent cops and a horde of sociopaths licensed to torture and kill, whose outrages are casually accepted by all concerned, not least by the victims. The prevailing emotional states are loneliness and fear. Events take place in darkness, menace breathes out of every corner of the night, the bleak cityscape comes alive on the page and in our hearts. ("Introduction")" fiction cornell-woolrich the-great-depression pulp noir crime police Francis M. Nevins
741c186 Even if you want no state, or a minimal state, then you still have to argue it point-by-point. Especially since most minimalists want to keep exactly the economic and police system that keeps them privileged. That's libertarians for you--anarchists who want police protection from their slaves. libertarians libertarianism privilege police Kim Stanley Robinson
e1667e8 I could only think one troubling thought: the police, the state, did the bidding of the holders of great wealth. How much freedom of speech and freedom of assembly you had depended on what class you were in. zinn police Howard Zinn
05b2a0f The need to forgive the officer would not have moved me because, even then, in some inchoate form. I knew that Prince was not killed by a single officer so much as he was murdered by his country and all the fears that have marked it from birth. killing murder police Ta-Nehisi Coates
cb45abb The minutes ticked past. This is why peelers need a book. A wee paperback to stick in your pocket. time reading police Adrian McKinty
9d3efca Kada policijos informatorius tampa isties patikimas? Kai atskleidzia samoksla. Tad reikia surengti samoksla, apie kuri galetu pranesti. information police Umberto Eco
e604c4c Most undercover cops are vastly skilled at compartmentalization. It is a talent as valued as lying. They seal off their real feelings and create imitation emotions. Easily torn down when it's time to show the badge, drag someone downtown, and sit across from him in an interrogation cell and tell him how fucked he is now. criminal imitation cops fake emotions interrogation police Charlie Huston
3675558 Goody. That must be why they were looking for a 22-caliber anything when they came by with their search warrant this morning.' 'They didn't!' 'They did.' 'When?' 'Oddly enough, right before I upped my meds. search-warrant search sarcastic-humor sarcastic sarcasm police Sandra Balzo
a3be2c1 Through political opportunism and ineptitude, the city had allowed the [police] department to languish for years as an understaffed and underequipped paramilitary organization. Infected with political bacteria itself, the department was top-heavy with managers while the ranks below were so thin that the dog soldiers on the street rarely had the time or inclination to step out of their protective machines, their cars, to meet the people they served. They only ventured out to deal with the dirtbags and consequently, Bosch knew, it had created a police culture in which everybody not in blue was seen as a dirtbag and was treated as such. Everybody. politics police Michael Connelly
25b297d In many ways Martinsson was the opposite of Svedberg: he was coming up to 30, born in Trollhattan, and had set his sights early on a police career. As a police officer, Martinsson was impulsive and sometime careless, but he often had good ideas and his ambition meant that he worked tirelessly when he though he could see a solution to a problem. wallander police Henning Mankell
fc61c08 There is a thumping silence, and the light of the one lamp across the wet tiled floor seems conscious that it will illuminate this and many other atrocities, just as it will go on shining through days and months of sudden speechless lusts, and all the intervening hours of silent emptiness. bathroom lamp gay police Alan Hollinghurst
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