Sole Morality

Bully Badge

Out of the Philadelphia Daily News comes a report of police bullying that will make you want to throw something (preferably not at the LCD monitor, they can be expensive). Here's the scenario.

Imagine you are in your car and are rear-ended by another vehicle that drives off instead of stopping. The driver of the other vehicle turns out to be the son of a local cop who is on duty. The son goes and reports the accident to dad. What do you think should happen?

Morally, the father shouldn't show any preference in taking the report of the accident. Ethically, I believe the father shouldn't even get involved and the entire incident should be handled by another officer if not an officer from a different department. Relation to an officer should play no part in the investigation of an accident. What do you think actually happened? Well, if you didn't click through the link, then I can almost guarantee you won't guess. The cop assaults the victim.

Officer Lopez takes his son in his patrol car to the convenience store the accident victims are at and confronts him. During all of this, his son is armed with a handgun, although it was never drawn. Officer Lopez's account is that he ordered Agnes Lawless and her three companions to the ground and that she resisted, assaulting the officer. That is the charge she was arrested on and for which spent a night in jail. That is the story that the courts believed over Lawless' story, even though all three of her companions and the store clerk gave stories that matched hers.

The fact that the courts would side with a cop over the victim isn't unheard of as they often are faced with a he-said-she-said situation of events. The fact that they believed a single police officer over the victim and four other witnesses is concerning if not suspect. Oh, did I mention that the officer's son was involved in the accident that lead to this, thereby possibly prejudicing him in the recount of the events? I did? Oh, I don't see why I bothered since the officer didn't! In fact, he didn't even use his son's name in the report, only referring to him as a "witness." But the court did side with the officer and suggest that Lawless be brought to trial. Well, they did until the store's security footage was released and showed a different course of events. One that matched Lawless' version.

Despite her not being hostile in the least at the outset of the encoutner, Officer Lopez proceeded to approach Lawless from behind with a drawn handgun, forcibly grab her by the neck, force his gun against her neck, and struck her in the face. Lawless, uncertain of what was going on and obviously confused by the lack of professional behavior, felt that the best thing would be to leave the situation and call for some "real cops." She is stopped and physically restrained, not by Officer Lopez, but by his son. Officer Lopez twice asks the store clerk to "do himself a favor" and erase the security camera footage. Three times after the incident, cops tell the clerk to erase the tapes and testify for the cop.

With the video out and the charges aginst Lawless dropped, an Internal Affairs investigation was conducted. Here is a man who violated the public's trust by engaging in completely inappropriate and unprofessional behavior, comitted multiple crimes as he assaulted members of the public, and endangered the lives of all of the people in the store when he needlessly initiated a physical confrontation with a drawn handgun, pressing it up against the body of an innocent person in a threatening manner. Certainly plenty for an IA investigation to work from and with video footage of the encounter, you'd think that would be plenty of evidence.

No, not really. And this is where the article got my attention.

After four months, the district attourney decided not to prosecute Officer L0pez. In the end, the Internal Affairs investigation found that Officer Lopez had violated departmental policies, but that was all. He was reissued his gun and is back on full duty although the department may still reprimand him.

Frankly, that is thoroughly insufficient. He should have lost his gun, his badge, and his commission and been barred from ever being employed in law enforcement again.

Lapses in judgment like that of Officer Lopez's would be utterly inexcusable if committed by the public and should be equally so when committed by police officers. Officers should be ticketed every time they are caught speeding and not let off for the exact reason that they are police officers and should be setting the example of the behavior they expect the populous at large to exhibit. They should be the shining examples of what it means to be a law abiding citizen.

Police officers are granted an incalculable trust by the public and when they violate that trust, there must be significant consequences if the people are to be able to continue to place that trust in the police as a whole. Christ put it best when he told the mass assembled to put the adulterous woman to death when he advised the person who was without sin to cast the first stone.

How can we allow someone to enforce the rule of law who is on film eggregiously violating that law and reportedly shouting, "You think you can hit my son and get away with it, you think you can f--- with me?"

We can't and we should never be asked to do so.