Again: Your job does not free you from your primary obligation to determine right from wrong and to act accordingly.
Three recent items, all excellent examples of that fact:
See the binding principle?
Commenter Andrew at Radley’s place, notes, of cops:
They’ve pretty much dropped any pretense of being anything but bullies, thugs and an army of occupation.
Take a long look at that Denver PD commemorative t-shirt. That’s a mark of people who crave bullying, intimidation, control, and wielding arbitrary force. It’s telling that every cop involved in the DNC received one “free”, yet there is demand for 2000 more.
The pretense “to serve and protect” is long dead. The new premise of police conduct is this: their presumptive authority must be respected at all costs.
Sean Bell’s murderers were acquitted this afternoon:
Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day
Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren’t charged.
Cooperman indicated that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version. “The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified” in firing, he said.
With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire.
The emphasis is mine. It should be obvious what happened: one cop fired a shot, the others heard it, panicked, assumed they were being fired upon, and joined the summary execution that killed Sean.
This is disgustingly predictable:
[Judge] Cooperman indicated that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version.
Deference to police, despite the evidence, has become a prerequisite to being a judge.
In the end, this is all we need to know:
There was no weapon inside Bell’s blood-splattered car.
Those cops fucked up huge. Cooperman lacks the spine to say so, and let the murderers walk away.
Sean Bell’s murder is one more reason that cops should be required to wear forehead cameras streaming live video and broadcasting GPS coordinates.
Charley Hardman’s post from a few weeks ago, that was nuremberg, this is now, gets at what I’ve been saying for a long time now, and what should be obvious to anyone with even the smallest shred of principle and integrity: your job does not free you from your obligation to determine right from wrong and to act accordingly.
The implications of that are immense, and apply to everyone, from Adolph Eichmann, to the local dog monitor girl.