You might want to reread this post before you find out the hard way how people get "silenced" around here.
Some sense, as you say there are bad apples in most fields of work. Like others on here I know some Police Officers and given the nature of my job I do interact with the Police from time to time. As for for the political spectrum in US terms this board does tend to lean towards the left of the spectrum, in Europe it might seem more centrist on the spectrum. It's all down to ones perspective.
So getting back to the original topic of this thread, did @Flying Spaghetti Monster's friend go through with the police's request or not? Assuming the friend lives in America, the police cannot force her to go through with it.
Hey, hey don't be so hard on @elamigodemiamiga I mean, I am a bad bad man. You all know it. I'm all for the infringement of peoples rights and just kicking around wasting tax payers money. Can't get enough of that shit. But fuck me, I look amazing in my bulky stabvest, £2.99 white shirt, combats that fade after two washes, and boots that won't shine no matter how much I polish them. And I have that big stick to look manly with. Hugo - off back on the beat
So if I were so say a specific race was inferior and "hey, that's just my opinion man" you'd like that slide because it'd be rude to challenge me?
Well I think we might be able to close this thread down then. As the likely consus will be that he majority of Police Officers are decent hard working people who have a few bad apples. But that can be said of any profession.
That wasn't why the thread was started. That was just the tangent that some guy launched us into because he made a stupid generalization. FSM had a different issue regarding a friend of his: http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/question-about-police.285081/
I asked this earlier, but I didn't get any response, so I'll ask again. Did @Flying Spaghetti Monster's friend go through with the police's request or not? Assuming the friend lives in America, the police cannot force her to go through with it.
The police can't force her, but they can make recommendations to the prosecutor, which is the point. But I don't believe the police have the power to levy charges on their own, so they could only make a deal with prosecutorial cooperation and that's probably who she'd be better off talking to. (Plus also a lawyer, as mentioned before.) I suspect the cop(s) involved with this are preying on her ignorance and trying to scare her into doing something she doesn't have to do.
Generally when the police want to perform a sting operation, they use somebody who is close to the criminal who has likely been caught for something and is trying to get a lesser sentence. This is sone so that the criminal isn't as suspicious. My point is: they usually don't do it with somebody who is nearly a complete stranger to the criminal.
Generally speaking, the police make the initial decision whether to charge. While they don't make the final decision, for practical purposes, if a charge isn't filed, it probably isn't going to ever come. Many prosecutors, even if they are aware a different charge could be filed, aren't going to do anything about it because it's less work and it won't get noticed by their supervisors.