Ethics

What Does It Take for a Police Officer To Get Fired?

By Ed Brayton

Shoving a 71-year-old Walmart greeter to the ground and, when another customer came to assist, shoving that customer through a glass door?

Nope, even though that particular officer has had several complaints filed against him, and was involved in another altercation a year earlier.

How about three DWI incidents within a one-year span, including one in which the officer ran a roadblock, then had to be tasered, pepper-sprayed, and wrestled to the ground; another in which he hit another car, then left the scene of the accident; and another in which he fell asleep in his cruiser in front of a school, while in drive, with his foot resting on the break?

Nope. It took a fourth DWI incident to finally get him suspended.

How about an officer with an otherwise stellar record, who has a reputation in the department for honesty, but who became an outspoken critic of the war on drugs, and on one occasion declined to arrest a man after finding a single marijuana plant growing outside the man's home?

Yep, that'll do it.

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on January 14, 2009 (boomark / email).