I guess piling on is just another standard item in the leftist’s playbook. While officers appreciated WA. Rep. Christopher Hurst (Chairman of the House Public Safety Committee) speaking out recently regarding the flaws in the DOJ report in a Special to the [Seattle] Times (Dec. 30, 2011), now we find the cop detractors have not left the building. Rep. Hurst is the only person of note, of which I am aware, to critique the report and stand up for Seattle police officers. Most of the attention is going to those who support the ridiculous DOJ assessment of the SPD.
Two former civilian auditors for SPD’s Office of Professional Accountability wrote a recent article (DOJ Report on the Seattle Police Department can provide a basis for improvement, Seattle Times, 01/01/12) that piles on, while the SPD is down. Kate Pflaumer and Terrance Carroll express the same warped perspective regarding dealing with dangerous suspects as the DOJ and other SPD detractors. Once again they reiterated the absurd notion that drunk, high, or mentally ill individuals somehow need to be dealt with, with more talk.
By definition, these folks are not in their right minds. In the case of being drunk and high, it’s by their own volition. They are unpredictable and the officer is in jeopardy every second the suspect is not under control. As long as the suspect is not under control, anything can still happen. But this is just another example of how some non-cops think.
I would never presume to attempt to tell a surgeon, or an accountant, or even a chef how to do his job better, unless I’d been a surgeon, accountant, or chef for a significant time, and had been successful at it. Yet we have politically motivated, leftie ideologues who presume to tell cops how better to do their jobs. If only they could look at the world through the eyes of a 20-year veteran—hell 5-year veteran cop— even for a minute, then they’d find out just how ridiculous they sound.
I have several mental health residences in my district and sector including the Sound Mental Health (SMH) facilities. I’ve dealt with hundreds of calls involving the mentally ill, some of them quite violent. Ask the staff at SMH how SPD routinely handles the mentally ill. I won’t be surprised at what they tell you, but the authors and the DOJ would probably be. But then again, I’ve only had about twenty years actually dealing with drunk, high, and mentally ill people. What have I experienced? What have I learned? What do I know?
I found another aspect of the article fascinating, as much for its literary construction, as for the hypocritical, and contradictory points it makes within the same paragraph. First, the authors agree with the DOJ that an officer’s compelled Use of Force Statement (given involuntarily) should be allowed to be used in court against the officer. However, within the very same paragraph, the authors state the prosecution should be precluded from using a complainant’s statement (given voluntarily) against him or her in court.
Now, the only reason I can imagine a complainant’s statement being used against him or her in court, would be if he or she lied when writing or dictating it. The authors are concerned that using a statement in court could inhibit people from making police complaints. I must be naïve. Here I am thinking, being able to use a statement in court would just make people feel inhibited from lying to the police.
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