Brendan Behan Quotes

I still have admiration for the vast majority of police officers, but there is no denying that some are guilty of mistreating the people they are supposed to serve.

The police are very mean people sometimes.

No oppression is so heavy or lasting as that which is inflicted by the perversion and exorbitance of legal authority.

Maybe it's stress or anger or adrenaline or disillusionment or a bullying nature or simple fear of getting killed themselves, but there is a problem if a cop cannot tell the difference between a menacing gangster and the far more common person they encounter whose life is a little frayed and messy.

Criminal conduct by police officers, federal agents, and their confederates cannot be tolerated and will be met with the full force of the law.

Policemen so cherish their status as keepers of the peace and protectors of the public that they have occasionally been known to beat to death those citizens or groups who question that status.

Charging a reporter with trespassing and interfering with a police officer when he was just doing his job is outrageous. This latest action represents contemptable overreaching by prosecutors who seem to have no regard for the role of journalists seeking to cover a major story and following normal practice.

Given free play, the best policemen act badly more often than not, which is why they are given free play on any large scale only when their employers discern some social utility in their acting badly.

Anyone who wears a badge has the government’s go-ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law-abiding citizens

Nothing corrupts a man so much as being an arm of the law and making men suffer.

no court has ever authorized what the government now seeks, no law supports such unlimited and sweeping use of the judicial process, and the Constitution forbids it.

The majority of my interactions with police were not good. There were a few good ones who were actually protecting the community. But then you have ones from the Valley. They never met me in their life, but since I'm a kid in basketball shorts and a white T-shirt, they wanna slam me on the hood of the car. Sixteen years old.

No officer should be allowed to behave as if they are above the law just because they are responsible for upholding the law. Permitting and protecting even the smallest acts of abuse by a tiny fraction of our officers leads to a culture where extreme acts of abuse are more likely, just like what happened to Laquan McDonald.

The police have the right to prosecute people, but not use violence.

Do I acknowledge that there are some law enforcement officers that abuse their job? Yes.

If you feel your rights are being abused by the authorities, and you don't say something, sometimes the cops don't know how far to take it. They have a hard job, but at the same time, I think it's just about educating yourself.

There's a point where a cop pulls you out of that car and starts abusing you or beating on you and at that moment he is no longer within the law.

We need to statutize what is permissible and what is not permissible. If a law enforcement agent uses a clearly unapproved technique like the knee that was on the neck of George Floyd for over eight minutes, no law enforcement agent thinks that that's right and that officer should be held accountable.

Very few police officers are ever held accountable for even the most egregious shootings and acts of violence.

Police are supposed to protect and serve, but sadly, they protect their self-interest first and foremost.

Crime takes place in every country. But it becomes abuse when the state is unwilling and unable to protect the life and honour of its citizens.

There's no question that, in nearly seven weeks of nightly demonstrations, the police have done many things right, and they've done some things wrong as well.

My nana was a detective; my nana was a great cop. You also have bad cops that were bullied in school or whatever and think that they have power, and that makes other cops look bad.

I've had my fair share of incidents with law enforcement, whether they're saying smart remarks, condescending remarks to downplay who I am and what I can afford... It's something that made me stronger on the back end of it, and learned from those instances.

Nobody wants bad cops off the street more than good cops.