Stannard67 at aol.com wrote:
>
> Many of my friends' relatives are cops; a former sister-in-law was a
> sherrif's deputy, and a former brother-in-law was a prison guard.
> They are pretty much all pricks. Induction into prickdom is part of
> the job training. Racism is rampant among cops, whether rural or
> urban. The most blatant examples of racist behavior I ever saw
> occurred when I lived in LA and saw how my white friends could smoke
> joints in the open daylight, but mexicans and blacks were routinely
> harassed and slapped around by cops (of every color) for doing nothing
> or next to nothing wrong.
A cousin of mine was a Sheriff's Deputy in Berrien County (southwestern michigan) for a number of years, and he wasn't a prick. He ventually quit the job too -- to avoid becoming a prick. The stories he has to tell are often hilarious -- and equally often scary. (The funny ones are at his own expense; the scary ones are about how the police operated.)
Carrol