I listened to the noon news with a sigh of resignation as the story about a Dallas cop unfolded. It seems a car rolled through a stop sign in the wee hours of the morning in a rush to get to the hospital. He pulled it over - in the hospital parking lot. The occupants explained they had gotten a call that the woman's mother was near death and they were trying to get to her.No dice. He refused to let them go, demanding the usual, drivers license, registration, proof of insurance. Flustered, the man had trouble finding everything and finally the woman fled into the hospital, arriving in the nick of time. The man did not.
I don't understand the mentality it takes for these jobs. The man in question was a member of the Dallas Cowboys. Did the officer want to make a score to impress his buddies?
How many of you as a kid wanted to be either a fireman or a policeman? What has happened to them as role models? Well, in Spokane they can get away with egregious behavior and lose little more than their jobs - if that. We just had a case wrap up where a drunken off duty officer chased a young man through a neighborhood ultimately shooting him in the head. He claimed the young man tried to steal his truck.
He was acquitted and will receive back pay. In the infinite wisdom of the judge, the jury was not allowed to be told the young man had already been found not guilty of trying to steal the truck in a previous trial! Fellow officers cheered the outcome. The chief declared she believes in the process.
Then just this morning there was a story about a former firefighter being convicted of assault. This is his second go round. The first, which cost him his job, was having sex with a sixteen year old in the firehouse and taking pictures of the episode to boot. To make matters easier for him detectives had him erase the photos from his cell phone.
The firefighter said the sex was consensual. In the firehouse? With a sixteen year old? I realize that everyone under the age of 60 looks 16 to me, but the offender was around 35 at the time! And married. The prosecuting attorney said he could not file charges because the evidence had been destroyed.
So. What did he do that finally caught up with him? He bought another 16 year old girl bras and asked her to model them in the adult care home run by his wife. He then fondled her, straddled her on a bed while giving her a massage. This time the charges stuck. His wife lost the license for her facility and he must have a psycho sexual evaluation. Do you think?
If soap opera writers ever get stuck for material for story lines they need but search the archives of the local paper for stories galore. This, unfortunately, is just one more in what seems to be a constant parade of deviant behavior.
Police and firemen are supposed to be our hero's! They're supposed to save lives, not ruin them!
As for the attorneys, the judges and the juries? That's another post after I get the distaste from this one out of my mouth!
3 comments:
Ahhh DM, one must consider the source. The Spokand police are a poor imitation of the Keystone Cops without the humor. Remember poor Otto Zehm? The police chief said that she wouldn't tolerate this kind of behavior. Ho hum...all talk, no do madame police chief. As for the sixteen year old being "consenual", under the law a sixteen year old cannot consent. That was stat rape in fact and under the law.
The Dallas cop was an idiot massaging his ego. Too many of those are in uniform today. Sad and distasteful. CU
That's really sad Dogwalk ... In the main these days fire fighters and police are well thought of in Australia, and corruption has taken a holiday. (There are always exceptions of course.)
Actually our Prime Minister Kevin Rudd described fire fighters in the Victorian bushfire last month as national heroes.
Just yesterday, by coincidence, he was making presentations of bright yellow Australian fire helmets to a group of American fire fighters who came over here to help during the crisis. In the USA on a visit for economic talks, Mr Rudd called your fire fighters 'mates'. High praise.
I think, at least I hope, that rogue cops and firemen are the exception, not the rule. While reading the report of the funeral for the slain Oakland police officers this morning, I was reminded of the good men in these professions. We have only to remember 9/11 where both police and firemen courageously entered those buildings, never to return. I believe that these examples of selflessness make the rogues even more distasteful. CU
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