Pixiq

Another aggressive bully cop who thinks she’s above the law and can do anything she wants. One day someone’s going to give lady officer a good and well deserved ass kicking.

“Get that out of my face” as she advances on the person with the camera.

Classic bully.

Then, after she invariably makes contact with the photographer while doing this, she claims the photographer hit her.

Right up there with “assaulted my fist with their face.”

Maybe more officers like this one need to get justifiably beaten back so they know not to pull these stunts anymore.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

typical cop bully.

they must teach that stuff in cop school. accuse the person of what you are doing to them. i wonder how long this current crop of aggressive cops is going to last. as if aggressiveness like that cop shows ever solved anything. the one thing for sure about it is that it allows cops to justify their jobs.
duane kerzic recently posted..2010-08-31 Bike Shipping Day

I like how cops always try to make people look bad by telling on then for using naughty words in police reports. Like, “Look at the lowlifes I have to put up with. Double my pension!” The video doesn’t lie, though. Looks to me like Momma Ally wasn’t the one swearing.

I hate to pull a Johny Law, but why didn’t she post the full tape to youtube? I’d like to see the portion where she doesn’t comply with the officer to back away. Isn’t that what started this mess? Either there were no instructions to back away and this cop went ballistic on her for no good reason, or she was asked to back away and she didn’t listen. Just because you have a camera doesn’t make you immune to all laws. If she is innocent, she should post the whole tape. If she’s guilty, she should hire a good lawyer.

@bob

She already said she didn’t start recording (and didn’t have the camera out) until the officer started in on her. That’s an RTFA.

Instructions to back away from what, anyway? If they were actually in the process of investigating the homeless guy for some “crime,” they sure dropped it in a hurry just for someone talking to the guy and having a camera.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

“Essentially, police were harassing a homeless man when Shoaf walked up to him to see if he was ok. ”

So she decided to interrupt a subject stop and get in the way of officers? Does that strike anyone else as strange? If anything, her ass needed to go for interfering. The tape only shows the last couple 40 seconds of this and it is your typical shaky camera. It shows nothing.

Basically Shelly Helper McHelpington decided to stick her nose in something that didn’t concern her and now she wants to cry about the results. You want to videotape, then stand a little ways off and do it. Don’t stick the camera in the officer’s face and then get surprised when you get snatched up.

The video starts with the camera about a foot from the officers face. This is what is in the police report, If I was on a jury I would interpret this as proof that this activist in her zeal to defend a homeless person. Interfered with the police. How Far back would you like me to stand officer. Why are you harassing those men officer? She could have done something good, if she had stood far enough back to collect evidence. She did not, now we have a shaky video that can be torn apart in court and proves the officers statements.

Saying that the police were “harassing” the man is taking one side of the story, one that is not presented in the short video. At the very least the police were involved with an individual which to anyone with common sense should say stay out of it. If the police were really harassing him it would have made much more sense to video that from the outside, rather than get into the middle of it and stick a camera in the officers face. Simply put, you just don’t have the right to interfere with a police officer doing their duty, whether or not you have a camera.

As the fight for photographers rights gets more attention, there’s bound to be lots more of these “look, the police are abusing me” type videos showing very short, edited, and one-sided videos.

A person isn’t allowed to talk to police and another person at the same time?

“She did not, now we have a shaky video that can be torn apart in court and proves the officers statements.”

Except

“Ms Shoaf stopped, took a step toward me and shoved me”

is proven to be a lie on the officer’s part in the video.

And strangely

“SCPL Wilson retrieved the video camera and I logged it into the property room.”

The camera doesn’t show up on the list of things checked in she has in the second video.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

JL: How was she in the way of the officers? If she did interfere and was told to stop she complied. You can see in the video she is walking away from them. If you can’t see that from the “shaky” footage then my friend you’re legally blind.
Also it’s physically impossible to shove a video camera on someones face while at the same time moving away from them. It’s the officer shoving her face into the camera actually.
It’s people like you who are responsible for the mess we’re at now. People who automatically defend and cover for their own kind. It might as well be you in that video.

The officer lied on her report by saying that Shoaf walked towards her with the camera. The opposite is in fact true, the officer approached the subject and kept pushing her and she was the one using expletives.

Once the camera shows stark differences in the police report, the police officer can no longer be trusted and all charges on that arrest should be dropped.

Officer :”You just fuckin grabbed me!”Pushes
woman backward.

Your tax dollars at work.

So what happened before those 40 seconds of video? And why was she so close to the officers to begin with? Police have every right to maintain control of their subject stop. No cop is going to allow some do-gooder to walk up in the middle of things.

Sorry folks. The police sometimes react poorly towards photographers. I admit that but this ain’t one of those times.

You all make me sad. Every one of you that said she should have “stayed out of it”. “Nothing to see here”. All she did was ask the guy if he was okay. The cops weren’t talking to him at that moment. She wasn’t interfering. She was just asking a question. If she were to have yelled “Are you okay?!” across the street, would that be far enough away? What does that have anything to do with it. Seriously. RTFA.

“So what happened before those 40 seconds of video?”

Who cares, the officer did something wrong in the video. Nothing before it could justify lying about being assaulted by the photographer, which is firmly established by the video we have.

“Police have every right to maintain control of their subject stop.”

As long as they act within the law, sure. Can they legally order someone not to talk to someone else, however? People also have every right to talk to each other. If the officer can’t handle not being the center of attention, they can get over it.

“No cop is going to allow some do-gooder to walk up in the middle of things.”

If Johnny says so, I guess. Whether this is right, justified or even applicable to this instance or not remains to be seen.

“Sorry folks. The police sometimes react poorly towards photographers. I admit that but this ain’t one of those times.”

This is correct in the sense that the officers didn’t react poorly to the woman just because she had a camera. She had the nerve to speak and stand up for herself, and another person.

If there’s on things bad cops should fear, is people sticking together and standing up to them. They know they lose then.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

If you’re going to learn anything from this, it is that not every case of a photographer getting arrested is worth defending. Just like we would like to see neutrality when an officer is being investigated for abusing his power, we need to be equally neutral when when examining these situations. You cannot waste your energy and credibility on a situation where the woman:
1. Obviously interfered with the officers work
2. Did not comply with commands to back away
3. When being arrested, continued to be combative.

As photographers, we need to set an example in the way we interact with the police. If we are seen as disruptive, then public opinion will be on the side of officers when one of us is wrongly arrested. When filming a police officer that is doing a stop (whether on you or someone else):

1. Be far enough away that you are not interfering.
2. Comply with all orders on where to stand if you are asked to move. If you are the one being stopped, ask if you are free to leave.
3. Never touch an officer.
4. If being arrested, don’t struggle.

If you follow those rules, you can film all you want and not be charged with anything extra. If you follow those rules and are still harassed/abused/arrested needlessly, your film will hopefully prove your innocence and their guilt. If you act like this women did, the film will only damn you.

@Bob

You’re still in didn’t RTFA territory there, if there’s one thing we can learn from that comment.

1. Not exactly obvious
2. Apparently was, though the lawfulness of such a command remains in doubt based on what we know
3. Aside from the questionable legality of the arrest, how do you know she was *actually* combative?
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Bob, “2. Did not comply with commands to back away”
watch the fucking video before you make comments like that.

This kind of reminds me of the video of the deaf guy and the security guard.
In that video we saw what happens when nobody does anything.

In this video this woman stepped into a situation where she thought a man might need help. While some might see it as interfering with the officers work, I look at it and see someone doing the right thing.

On a somewhat separate note – how is it that police officers keep their jobs after they are caught in a lie? Seriously. If I were to lie to my boss I would be fired -end of story.

Johnny Law – you are in this business- how does this work exactly? Not saying that you lie – but why don’t bad cops get fired?

Define bad cop. There is no evidence they lied in this. You are making an assumption there.

She’s not a hero from walking up into the middle of a police stop. She’s a moron for that.

Sorry wasn’t speaking to this particular incident per say – just in general (though I would argue there is no evidence of the woman pushing the officer). There are quite a few examples just on this site where officers say one thing occurred but then video evidence shows otherwise. Or that arrest reasons given are at least trumped up, at worst out right fabrications.

On the second part – the woman being a “moron” guess we will just have to disagree. I trust that she assessed the situation for what it really was, and the officers were just mad that she didn’t leave when they “commanded”. Given the homeless person was just sitting and was about to released I am pretty certain that the only threats were the officers present.

Meant to answer your first question: What makes a cop bad?

I define a bad cop as one who lies to advance or protect their career, or to facilitate an arrest and/or conviction. An officer who abuses authority through intimidation, bullying, or wrongful application of law to further a personal agenda. One who intentionally escalates a situation for no other purpose than the escalation and subsequent ramifications for the party or parties involved. A bad cop covers-up (either through lying or silence) for other cops when they have done wrong. A bad cop allows their emotions to get the better of them and then hide behind “the law” and other officers when they commit crime(s) like assault. A bad cop doesn’t understand the law they are enforcing, but does so at the peril of their target without concern. Further the bad cop will push other charges if the arrest was invalid (prosecutors do this too). A bad cop breaks the law (on or off duty) with the expectation and attitude that the law doesn’t apply to him/her. A bad cop doesn’t believe that they are subject to the same application of the laws that govern all other citizens. A bad cop allows their opinion of a class or race or group of people to influence their application of the law.

“There is no evidence they lied in this. You are making an assumption there.”

Watch the video, which covers the time that the officer is describing when she makes this statement:

“Ms. Shoaf took a step back in order to record me, aggressively sticking a Flip camcorder in my face. I told her to leave and began walking toward her because she would not leave the area. Ms Shoaf had the camera in my face and I was using my hand to push it aside. Ms Shoaf stopped, took a step toward me and shoved me. Because of the way Ms Shoaf was moving her arms around in an attempt to record me I could not get ahold of her arms; I grabbed her hair and pulled her toward the ground in an attempt to get her lowered and off balance as I tried to find somewhere to grab her to gain control. During this time SCpl Wilson was giving MsShoaf verbal commands to put her hands behind her back and told her she was under arrest.”

The video covers this time frame. What the officer states does not happen.

Direct evidence that the officer’s statement is a lie.

Bear in mind that to JL, police reports are facts and not testimony, as long as they don’t make the police look bad.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Johnny Law // Sep 9, 2010 at 1:12 PM

Define bad cop. There is no evidence they lied in this. You are making an assumption there.

She’s not a hero from walking up into the middle of a police stop. She’s a moron for that.

Hi Johnny,
I, like Jon, would like to know how police officers get away with lying? I’m not talking about this case, but in general. We all know it’s okay for officers to lie to civilians, but when they lie to there superiors is it all part of the thin blue line? I mean is it acceptable or are there feelings of disrespect and mistrust concerning the officer that lied?

JL: “There is no evidence they lied in this.” Maybe you too should watch the video before you make idiotic comments like that. Geez they seem to hire anyone these days…

The reason police officers get away with lying is because police unions argue that cops should only be fired if they’re convicted of felony charges. That’s basically the reason. On top of that, many unions have successfully argued for multiple standards of review to occur before a cop can be fired, and the people sitting on those review boards are all union cop people or institutionalized police officers with little objectivity. There are few states or municipalities without those kind of protections for cops (and that’s assuming that the evidence is open-and-shut). And finally, even if a cop is fired, he can easily be hired by the next town and go back to his routine ways.

Jon,

That kinda turned into a long list. So is someone a bad cop if they do any of that list or most of it? What if they make one mistake after 10 years of perfect service? Should the first screw-up be termination? I think you have a zero defect mentality when it comes to cops.

As for lying, I agree that if a cop lies on an affidavit, report, or in court, they should be fired. No argument there. However you are quick to jump to the conclusion that someone lied based on 40 seconds of shaky video of an incident that went much longer.

The statement “I trust that she assessed the situation for what it really was, and the officers were just mad that she didn’t leave when they “commanded”” is very interesting. What makes you so quick to start yelling liar just because she says so? What do you know about her? Anything or just the fact that she’s not a cop?

This may rock your world but people lie about things all the time, especially when they are facing criminal charges.

And sorry but people are not allowed to interject themselves into a police subject stop just because they want to see how everyone is doing. Someone asked “Can they legally order someone not to talk to someone else, however? People also have every right to talk to each other”

The answer is yes they can order someone not to talk to someone else. If they are on a subject stop and another person comes up and starts yapping with the subject, it kinda makes it hard for the officer to do their job. It’s not about being the center of attention. It’s about maintaining control of the stop so that they can finish their business.

You walk into the middle of one of my stops and I am going to tell you get lost. You keep it up and you go to jail.

JL is just like these cops.

ARVADA – Three former police officers have been charged in connection to an alleged assault in January.

The Jefferson and Gilpin County District Attorney’s Office says 31-year-old Charles Humphrey was charged with one count of third-degree assault, one count of duty to report use of force by a peace officer, first-degree official misconduct and false reporting to authorities.

9Wants to Know first reported last week that the excessive force allegation came after several officers reportedly witnessed another officer striking a person who was being arrested. 9Wants to Know learned that officers may have lied on reports about the incident or omitted it altogether.

The district attorney’s office say 29-year-old Whitney Bauma and 28-year-old Noah Rolfing were each charged with one count of duty to report use of force by a peace officer, first-degree official misconduct, and false reporting to authorities.

The investigation was conducted by the Arapahoe County Sheriff’s Office at the request of Arvada Police.

A total of four Arvada officers resigned over the incident and a fifth was on paid administrative leave.

Arvada Police Chief Don Wick did not release the name of the victim in the case, but says that person sustained minor injuries.

Humphrey is scheduled to be arraigned on Nov. 2. Bauma is due in court on Nov. 3 and Rolfing’s arraignment will be held Nov. 4.
(KUSA-TV © 2010 Multimedia Holdings Corporation)

http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=152054&catid=339

Unfortunately, First Amendment rights to speak and associate trump an officer’s feeling of “maintaining control.”

A person has a right to remain silent, and to speak to whoever they wish. Just because an officer can be a bully about it doesn’t make them justified in doing so.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

“Unfortunately, First Amendment rights to speak and associate trump an officer’s feeling of “maintaining control.”

A person has a right to remain silent, and to speak to whoever they wish. ”

You are dead wrong on this buddy. You try to walk up to a car and start talking to a driver next time you see a cop on a traffic stop. Or walk up to a cop writing someone a jaywalking ticket and start asking the subject what they think about the war in Iraq.

You will find out pretty quick how that works. And here is big surprise for you. The court supports the officer in these cases!!

Anon #29,

That’s a pretty big jump but assume whatever you want about me. Maybe you are like this person (who knows? I’m assuming):

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) – A Drew County man has been charged with felony aggravated cruelty to animals in the beating death of a horse.

Authorities say 20-year-old Benjamin Briney is accused of beating the horse with a wooden baseball bat in a wooded area near Monticello.

Arkansas Humane Society director Desiree Bender says Briney is likely one of the first – if not the first – person in Arkansas charged under the state’s new felony animal cruelty law.

Drew County Sheriff Mark Gober says Briney was caring for the horse when it was attacked by another animal and was bleeding from the ears. Gober says the horse’s owner told Briney he should “get rid” of the animal so he beat it to death.

So says the anon guy on the internet.

One of the more entertaining ways to deflect an officer telling you to stop shooting is to not address them directly, and instead openly confer with your reporter about being legally able to do so from where you are.

(I discovered this one by accident in college.)

They don’t get the satisfaction of drawing you into a verbal altercation, and you get to demonstrate that you know your rights without getting into that same argument.

It’s fun to watch them realize you’re not playing their game and shut up like that. XD

Talking to someone else when you’re being pushed around by a cop is not only legal, it can be useful.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

You have a personal reporter following you around? Impressive.

You could talk to Perry Mason and Matlock on a conference call and it wouldn’t make a lick of difference on whether you were allowed to get in the middle of a subject stop or not. (Hint-the answer is “or not”)

Michaelk42,

The best thing to do is never talk to cops at all. You’re right that many cops like to draw people into their petty power-game struggles. Cops love to lord it over people. They’re always trying to prove their dick is bigger than anyone else’s.

Johnny has limited experience with actual crime scenes (since he mostly deals with drunks after bars close) otherwise he’d realize photographers and reporters from newspapers sometimes (even often) work in teams. I would think most actual police officers would know this and be used to the concept.

He also seems to think not giving an officer 100% of your attention is some sort of legitimately arrestable offense, yet it’s OK to remain silent. Something to think about.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

@Sydney

Yeah, that’s why it’s good to make the “discussion” with your partner/friend/whatever loud enough that the cop can hear you know not to fall for bullshit.

It gets the point across and you don’t have to talk to the cop at all.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

“Johnny has limited experience with actual crime scenes”

Now that’s some funny stuff. I bow to your superior knowledge of crime scenes. You must have watched a lot of episodes of CSI to become so high speed.

“He also seems to think not giving an officer 100% of your attention is some sort of legitimately arrestable offense”

Now who is being deliberately obtuse. You know we are talking about interrupting a police subject stop. The police have 100% right to keep someone from coming up to a person they are dealing with. You trying to be clever won’t change that.

Notice Johnny doesn’t get that his inexperience is inferred by his clueless “personal reporter” comment. Some people just shouldn’t try to be witty.

If the person being stopped wishes to acknowledge another person as well, they can do that. If the cop wants to keep at it they can simply reply with “Am I being detained?” “Am I free to go?” etc. & etc.
Michaelk42 recently posted..Unsurprisingly- Pogan gets no real punishment

Jon,

Your long list of “bad cop” traits won’t get any police officer fired in the normal course.

As I said, it is standard practice that police unions will back any police officer unless he is convicted in a court of law of a felony. Find me a union that thinks a lying cop should get fired. Find me a union who thinks that a bully cop who routinely uses intimidation on innocent people should be fired (hell, they’d probably praise him). Cops routinely cover up other bad behavior. Find me a union who thinks one who covers up for another cop’s bad behavior should be fired.

You won’t find any of that. Notice Johnny Law has nothing to say about that either. He knows exactly what the score is. As I said, most unions will back any cop unless they are proven and subsequently convicted of a felony. Not charged. Not accused. Convicted.

Maybe you don’t understand the role of a union. It is there to look out for the best interests of its members. It is there to make sure the accused officer is able to defend himself and not be railroaded for political reasons. If an officer is fired, the union is supposed to uphold the right of the officer to appeal.

I know you are all about due process and innocent until proven guilty unless it involves a cop. Freaking hypocrites.

Johnny,

Can you find any other organization on the planet that will back anyone’s employment in a job towards any point only stopping until AFTER you’re convicted of a FELONY?

I didn’t think so. And while you might say a cop who lies should be fired, your union sure as hell won’t. So police get to look like Mr. Honesty while the union does the dirty work behind the scenes. And that’s exactly how it plays out in real life too. Some cop does something bad, he gets fired or suspended, and the public is happy. Then, 6 months later the newspaper reports on page C-33 that the city was forced to re-hire him because they didn’t check the box on Form Z-86 when they dismissed him for raping children in public.

Due process is something that exists in a court of law. It has nothing to do with one’s employment. Union cops are just another public interest group, along with other bureaucrats living off the blood of John Q. Taxpayer. Besides, the amount of B.S. “due process” that exists is ridiculous. As I said, it’s not uncommon to find, especially in large cities, a system with multiple levels of review boards (stacked with cops doing the judging).

Cop unions, along with all other public sector unions, should be broken and made illegal. In theory they defend against politicization of a job, but in practice they protect bad cops and bad bureaucrats and bad teachers and bad public servants from the rigors of the normal economy and from having to perform well.

The unions are there to protect the cops from people like you who would have them fired for simply being accused of something. If the activists had their way, cops would be dropped for the smallest infraction or any bullshit complaint.

You love to hoot and holler about the rights of others but it just chaffs your tail that officers can’t be fired at the whim of some cophater with a grudge.

In answer to the questions asked about “bad cops” lying and how that works in the real world I would like to make couple of observations. While I am not an attorney I have some real world experience with this issue.

In general a LEO who lies while making a sworn statement (police report, courtroom testimony, etc.) could be added to a “Brady” list. In some jurisdictions this is called a “Do Not Use” list. These are lists that are maintained by prosecutors (DAs or SAs – depending on the jurisdiction). Essentially, these are lists of LEOs who are so well known to be liars that under “Brady” a prosecutor is required to disclose to the defense that the LEO is not trustworthy.

If you doubt that these lists actually exist please take a moment and read the list from the county where I live. You may see it here (http://web.mac.com/fogwatch/FOGWatch.org/IAmTroublemaker/Entries/2010/1/...).

The problem with the “Brady” rule is that it depends upon the integrity of the prosecutor. Sadly, LEOs, unions and prosecutors like to play games with “Brady Material.” In spite of the fact that the state is required to produce exculpatory evidence to the defense (including the fact that a LEO is a liar) they will sometimes do everything in their power to avoid doing so. If you doubt that read this article published by a large LEO union. In this article (http://www.porac.org/ldf/articles/october%201%202002.html) they give suggestions to prosecutors on how to work around complying with “Brady.” For example, prosecutors should never look a LEO’s personnel file. Prosecutors should not keep any exculpatory documents in their office so they can say “no” when a defense attorney asks if they have any “Brady” documents.

The reality is that so long as a LEO does not lie so blatantly that the prosecution has to acknowledge that they are big fat liars they get away with it. Not long ago I witnessed a LEO make numerous false statements under oat while on the witness stand. These statements were obviously and demonstrably false. There were at least ten other LEOs present when the officer in question spoke. I filed an internal affairs complaint and of course the result was predictable: the LEO did nothing wrong.

In the end, LEOs, prosecutors and the courts are all part of the same corrupt system. The only hope for changing that is citizen activism. It is amazing how much can be accomplished when a few people decide to pursue real change.

Johnny, with every word you prove my point: in any office setting, if a person was to be arrested on anything other than a motor vehicle violation, they would probably be fired. It doesn’t matter if they’re innocent or not. That’s just the way it is. Innocent people are routinely fired from jobs where they are falsely accused. Have you been living in a dreamworld all your life? This is how it works in the real world. Get your head out of the clouds.

Also, the reality is that the public is not waiting with baited breath to fire cops. They believe, wrongly, that most cops can do no wrong. And so a situation manifests where cops are free to sour and go bad over time and are protected by that image and by their union. 100% guilty cops who commit crimes are protected by that.

Tell me, when was the last time a cop was railroaded by politics yet saved by his union? Give me some recent examples, if you’re so sure of this. And I can give you hundreds, if not thousands, of counter examples where unions have defended evil men with the badge. Want some examples? Start here:
http://twitter.com/InjusticeNews

Thanks, Joel. Brady material is a perfect example of unions, cops, and prosecutors doing everything in their power to subvert and suppress the Constitutional rights of people and to protect bad cops. And it happens all the time.

“Innocent people are routinely fired from jobs where they are falsely accused.”

So this means what? That you want officers fired even if they are falsely accused? Well obviously that is what you want because you have already said they should be fired as soon as an accusation is made.

Under your reasoning, if I arrested you and took you to jail and you called Internal Affairs the next day and said I called you a racial slur and stole money out of your wallet, I should be fired. What a load of hypocritical bullshit.

The fair way, hell the only way, is for there to be an investigation to see if this happened and for the officer to remain on the job (with pay) until things are sorted out. You want to take him off the street and put him behind a desk until then, ok that’s fine. But to declare that he should be fired and lose his income solely based on the word of some bitter asshole is ridiculous.

I’ve had people make false complaints against me in the past and I know of many other officers who had the same thing happen to them. I guess they should fire them all even though the complaints were all found to be false.

Sorry, forgot to add:

In my experience if an officer is actually charged with a crime other a minor citation or perhaps a low level charge like DUI, they are terminated until after the case is resolved. If the officer is found not guilty or the charges are dropped, he gets his job back with all lost back pay. At least, that is how it is done in my state. Any thing larger than a DUI will cause the state board to pull your LEO license and make you unable to be an officer anywhere in the state.

JL, let me start by stating clearly that I appreciate your presence on this board. While I generally do not agree with you, I do appreciate the opportunity to hear a different perspective. I also appreciate your willingness to take a lot of abuse from other readers.

The example you gave of a DUI is a great one. It makes, I think, the point exactly.

In the private sector, if someone who made their living driving a vehicle got a DUI they would probably be fired. I find it interesting that from your perspective that is a low-level beef for a cop. That certainly seems to dovetail with what I have seen as I review the personnel files of LEOs in the jurisdiction where I live.

In one instance, for example, a LEO had five single car accidents in twelve years. If he had been working for UPS (a union shop if there ever was one) he’d have been on the street after the second accident. The same LEO was suspended multiple times for insubordination. If he had been working at IBM he’d have been on the street after the first incident. Elsewhere in his file, I found that he had been reprimanded for sexual harassment and leaving threatening voicemails for a female LEO in his department. If he had been working for Microsoft that would have put him on the street for sure. Then there was the time he threatened to abduct his special needs child form his estranged wife and take the child out of state in order to deprive his wife of her custodian rights. Keep in mind this is all the same guy and he still carries a gun and a badge.

Even after I made his personnel file public (front page of the local newspaper) he still has a job. Of course, I now get extra special attention for local law enforcement – it’s amazing how often they come by my house in the wee small hours of the morning. Here’s the point: LEOs are not held to a higher standard. The standard they are held to is MUCH lower than in the private sector.

That’s not an attack on LEOs. I respect the office and anyone who does the job with courage and integrity. But the fact is the unions have lowered the bar so much that the idea that LEOs are held to a “higher” standard is a joke. And they have no one to blame but themselves.

I don’t want anyone fired from their job who is innocent. But that’s the reality. The point, which Joel is his last post did an excellent job describing, is that the police are not held to the standard that the public is. In fact, they’re protected to an unreasonable degree, in which they are typically terminated from employment only after they are convicted of a felony. There is no other job in the world which has that kind of protection.

And that protection is the reason why cops can go bad, and contine to act bad, with impunity. I’m not calling for innocent people to be fired. I’m calling for a reasonable standard for people to be fired, as would be the case in any employment situation, one that does not involve union bloodsuckers demanding protection from anything until the point of felony conviction.

Joel,

You won’t find any argument from me that the officer you mentioned should have been fired a long time ago. I have no explanation of why he was allowed to stay on the job and your example does not match my experiences in regards to police discipline.

You made the statement”

“In the private sector, if someone who made their living driving a vehicle got a DUI they would probably be fired. I find it interesting that from your perspective that is a low-level beef for a cop.”

When I said low level I meant a lower level crime as classified by the Penal Code. A 1st time DUI in most areas is treated as a minor crime with the offender often getting probation. I am not sure why folks think that if a cop is arrested for DUI they should go straight to prison or be fired. It was one lapse of judgement in a case that the criminal justice system considers minor.

Of course the conviction isn’t the only thing that happens to the officer. He is also going to get suspended without pay by his department. He is going to be forced to go to alcohol treatment programs. He is going to be put on probation and any future disciplinary action will most likely lead to termination.

There aren’t many jobs where if you get complained on about off-duty behavior, it comes back on you at your regular job. For example if you get into financial trouble with a creditor, they will call your department and you will get hammered there for some vague “bringing discredit on the department.”

If you get into some kind of disagreement on the road and a car calls the department because they saw your FOP sticker and they complain you cut them off, you will get talked to about that. If your neighborhood association doesn’t like something you are doing and you guys are at odds about it, they can call your department and it come back on you at work.

My point is that cops are always under a microscope and the first thing people often do when they are pissed off at an officer (on-duty or off) is call and bitch to their department. There aren’t many jobs that have such complete control over your life and can discipline you for such vague things as bringing discredit on the department.