Charge them

I am not so naïve as to accept that all police officers are good. At the same time I am not so naïve as to accept that the actions of rogue cops we see on the news because they are so sensational is the norm.

The norm rarely makes the news or is recorded on a phone camera.

The sensational examples of cops gone wrong makes the day to day existence of the majority good cop very difficult, and the suspicions about all cops being a danger to those of a certain race understandable.

I suspect I am not alone in assuming the rogue cops are not motivated to do what they do to promote a bad image of police in general, nor that they act on any impulse or motivation beyond their own prejudices and character flaws.

Like most people, in spite of my initial reactions to each report of over the top behavior, no matter how abhorrent, I do need to see these actions are those of an extreme minority, without dismissing how abhorrent they are and how unjust to those mistreated, or even killed, while my anger also includes the wish that at some point the good cops can eliminate this.

It is a matter of acknowledging the rogue cops exist, their actions reflect poorly on all police, and law enforcement needs to take control of the situation.

This whole thing is an internal problem whose solution is also internal.

Most police officers live in the communities they protect and serve. They are the same people in and out of uniform, and they are neighbors in their communities. They do not need an adversarial relationship with their neighbors when they are in uniform, while assuming all is well when they are out of it. If the community sees a police officer harassing members of the community on duty, they will not instantaneously dismiss that when they see that same officer in mufti at the local bodega.

The same is true if a community sees officers acting positively.

And the police rely on their communities when it comes to keeping those communities safe. They rely on people reporting crimes and witnesses coming forward to help deal with them and pit the perpetrator behind bars. But if the slogan “See something; say something” becomes “say something; get arrested” that cooperation evaporates. A community silenced is a community that is unsafe.

Although the president hates sanctuary cities and rails against those who have warned their communities of impending ICE raids, in attempting to present an image of toughness, Trump announced that starting today there would be raids in immigrant communities to scoop up those here without documentation.

While ICE has said there are about 1,000 families and individuals it is going to be dealing with, Trump, ever the artiste of the hyperbole, upped that projection to millions either revealing that ICE’s plan is bigger than it said, or causing a wide, unnecessary panic.

ICE is a federal agency. It is not the local police. Yet, when they show up at raids or arrests, they wear jackets with the word “police” conspicuously on the back.

When I attended a local meeting where the county sheriff, a frustrated cowboy sheriff, along with ICE personnel to discuss how he cooperates with ICE, he and they admitted that they were not the police, yet they saw no problem presenting themselves as such.

This was discovered and introduced shop cialis by GlaxoSmithKline. It is perhaps not surprising that there more cases of impotency reported for men who smoke than those who do not. secretworldchronicle.com order cheap viagra They’re the spamming methods we all hate as on line cialis consumers on the web, and they’ve been impossible to ignore. They have the experience and expertise to deal with the issue more a very different discounts on levitra perspective. I objected to the impersonation of being police officers because while ICE agents leave town after a raid, the police, who they pretended to be, stay in it.

If they are not the police, they should not present themselves as them.

The sheriff attempted to excuse the intentional misrepresentation by explaining that on occasion the police are actually at a raid to lend assistance, but if that were the case, ICE should wear jackets that make it obvious they are ICE and only the police should have that word on their jackets. That way, on-lookers will know who is doing what, and if the police are even there.

There are news stories about mall security guards dressing and acting like the police who get arrested for impersonating an officer.

Let’s be clear. Impersonating an officer is falsely portraying oneself as a member of the police for the purpose of deception, sometimes committed in order to assert police-like authority, and often employed in order to commit a crime or to detain a person without resistance.

The imposter often wears a uniform that looks very much like that of a police officer.

It is illegal.

So while ICE and the cowboy sheriffs deceive people into assuming they are the local police and not the federal agents they are, they do so in order to detain people without resistance.

It is time that ICE and those cowboy sheriffs are brought up on charges of impersonating an officer, and remove the word “police” from their jackets.

As it is, they misrepresent the local police, thereby creating an adversarial relationship between local law enforcement and the community, and members of communities with each other.

This is unsafe.

Ice agents leave the community after the damage s done while the local police have to deal with the aftermath.

Breaking the law to impersonate an officer in order to deceive the public is committing an unlawful act in order to apply the law. It is just not right.

If ICE does not remove the word “police” from its uniforms, Local police departments should take the legal steps to make them do that.

Leave a Reply