TexasCHLforum.com

I thought I might give you a slightly different point of view on this issue, that of a retired police officer. As a police officer, I swore to uphold the law. The Texas Code of Criminal Procedure requires a police officer to respond to any crime that occurs in his jurisdiction at any time. This is where the concept that they are on duty 24 hours comes from. But please note that the law and the oath do not give me the choice on which laws to enforce, such as whether I like it or not. The law does give me a lot of discretion, but there are cases where it does not (both orders to arrest and orders forbidding arrest). I will discuss discretion but want to look at something else first.

I refuse, and believe the law and my oath support, to enforce any law that is in violation of the US Constitution. Most cops feel the same way. The question though is what law violates the Constitution if the SCOTUS has not ruled on it. I may or may not agree with you on this. For example, I have a pretty strict interpretation of the 2nd Amendment and stopped enforcing unlawfully carrying laws a long time ago for most cases. But does the Constitution allow for an emergency order to close businesses? It certainly allows for the regulation of commerce. I can point to arguments that say the Constitution does not allow them to shut the business down, but it is really a stretch (the Contracts Clause and the Habeas Corpus Clause).

Many officers do not agree with me on the emergency powers allowed to the government. A large number of officers, like a large number of citizens overall, think the government has a lot of power in an emergency. I cannot talk about the cases of people arrested for playing in parks or for letting the child play at someone else's house because I do not know their state laws or the wording of the exact emergency order. But I do know Texas law fairly well (certainly not perfectly). In the current case of the woman jailed for opening her salon, look closely at what happened. The governor issued an order closing the business. Part of the actual order says it can be enforced. The county judge issued an order that told people to stay home. That order also contained a clause saying it was a class B misdemeanor to violate it. The statute authorizing the order says this is proper and an offense. So we have a crime being committed and an officer is required to respond. The woman did not obey the order and opened her business. Police were sent (which means someone complained) and told her to close. She did not do so. Police were called again and the second time issued her a citation. She ignored it and stayed open. The third time, the police arrested her. Now we have the governor who issued the original order to close the business saying this is a travesty of justice. Just what were the police supposed to do? How do they treat the next governor's order if they know he will not back them for enforcing it?

Now, for a quick look at discretion. In most cases, it is up to the police officer how to handle any complaint. They MAY arrest but are not required to. If it is above a class C misdemeanor, the general rule is they cannot cite, but arrest or not are the only options (there are a couple offenses where they can write a ticket for class B or C misdemeanors). My belief is that I rarely arrest unless the person really deserves (IMO) a trip to jail. I have gotten into trouble over that attitude though, and different officers will find different offenses deserve trips to jail. An example of one offense I do not always arrest for but other officers do is DWI. I believe my job is to keep the streets safe. I may impound the car and put the offender in a taxi. I have had a few where I called the two truck and had the tow truck take the driver home with the car. And I have had a bunch where I arrested the driver. But some people get very upset when they hear that I do not arrest every DWI I find. I have been complained on for it. I have never said an officer did a bad thing by arresting a person for DWI if they were committing the offense.

Along the other side of this, and how some of you were saying, I do not support everything every officer has done either. I cannot see how an officer could justify arresting the nurse in the one case referred to (though I have taken the Devil's advocate position in a few debates to ask what was wrong with it). I cannot see how anyone could justify officers using a bomb to kill a person (in Dallas or Philadelphia). I do not understand how a county Sheriff can justify arresting protestors at a barber shop, though I admit that this one was confused by the protestors actions somewhat.

But when I see actions I cannot justify, I also remember that these are very rare events. The media makes them seem more common than they are. There are about 1,000,000 police officers in the US. Each one is making contacts with the public every day. Even when you see a dozen contacts gone bad in one week and the officers were completely unjustified in their actions, it means that 12 out of 7,000,000 or more contacts were a problem. There are always a few bad cops or a cop having a bad day and making a mistake. Please look at the very small percentage of bad incidents before you start losing your faith in police.

And as I say that, I admit I am troubled by some of the apparent trends I have seen. I think we can work to stop that. First thing is to work with legislators to stop passing laws we don't need and cops should not be enforcing. Before you support any law, ask the legislator if they are ready for someone to die over that law, because it will happen. Then we can work with police administration. We need to get agencies to remember that officer are peace office and not law enforcement officers. We need to support the police, even while we work to improve them.