Inexcusable behavior by DPD officer

[flintknapper]

tfrazier wrote:

I'd also like to add: Nobody gets better without making a few mistakes (except for the Originator of the "first stone" statement Charles quoted) and learning from those mistakes; even though the bar is justifiably raised when it comes to the law enforcement profession, people should consider the fact that these guys spend a lot of time putting themselves in harm's way.

Yes, we all make mistakes. Some are excusable, others not. As to your other point "harms way", the potential for harm is always present....I hope it is understood and accepted by those considering Law Enforcement as a career. If at some point this becomes unacceptable...its time to quit.

If every cop was fired immediately for being rude to a citizen or using 'poor judgment', we'd be out of officers in record time.

Probably true, and I think most people understand this...assumming the "level" of rudeness/poor judgment is NOT too severe.

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

I'm guessing the sergeant said that more for your benefit than anything else. Surely, he does not support the practice of poor performance (the basis of the reprimand) on a 50% scale as compared to good procedure. To say otherwise is to admit he "expects" behavior worthy of reprimand at least half the time from his officers. Worse yet, he condones it.

The job of a patrol officer is so full of split second decisions and legal complications nobody on the planet has the ability to do it perfectly all the time.

It can be...but it is not a constant condition. In this particular case...the only "split second" decision would have occurred as the occupants exited the vehicle, everything after that was quite manageable. So, lets be honest.

I'd be shocked if Powell hasn't done a lot of good things and even risked his life to help someone out over the past three years or so.

Maybe, but at the very least he was deemed competent enough to keep his job there for a few years, at this juncture that is all we know.

One 'uh-oh wipes out a thousand 'Attaboys!'...and nobody is digging for those facts anyway, are they?

I would love to see both sides presented. It would only be fair, but it is not likely to happen since the media is only interested in sensationalizing things. As far as I am concerned...one "uh-oh" never wipes out the "attaboys", but the attaboys are not laurels to rest upon....nor should they prevent disciplinary action if an "uh-oh" is severe enough.

At least Charles was smart enough to put on the flak vest...I forgot mine when I waded into this thread.

Neither of you need a flak jacket, this is just good discussion. Besides....Chas. hardly needs protection. In fact, he has always been gracious to every "reasonable" person here in terms of making argument. Heaven knows....he could tear most of us apart if he wanted to. Instead, he exercises restraint, makes his point, speaks at a level the other person can understand, and has NEVER made the argument "personal" that I can remember.

He is the last person requiring a flak jacket IMO, but if he ever feels he does (and can't find his own), he is welcome to mine, as are you.

[tfrazier]

tfrazier wrote:

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

I'm guessing the sergeant said that more for your benefit than anything else. Surely, he does not support the practice of poor performance (the basis of the reprimand) on a 50% scale as compared to good procedure. To say otherwise is to admit he "expects" behavior worthy of reprimand at least half the time from his officers. Worse yet, he condones it.

Well, anyone who has been in law enforcement any length of time, especially in a smaller department OR in a politically charged Sheriff's Office will probably agree that reprimands are not always appropriate, and are sometimes used to make an officer a scapegoat. Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, etc are human, too, and sometimes they lose their objectivity just like everyone else. Just like sometimes the commendations stack up for the "golden boy" who happens to be the Captain's son's best friend from high school.

And 50/50 reprimands vs. commendations is actually pretty believable if you work in a department where the top brass is regularly giving officers three-day suspensions without pay because they exceeded the "20 mph over the speed limit maximum" pursuit policy in chasing down an armed robber. Or ordering commanders to write up officers every time a released prisoner showed up claiming the officer put the hand cuffs on too tight, IMMEDIATELY after hearing the complaint and without giving the officer any opportunity to respond. That's the sort of thing that causes 30 of 32 officers to form the first ever patrolman's union in a town...and gets the K9 officer on the front page of the paper as the president. Having served under three different chiefs, two were outstanding. One gave me an indefinite suspension without pay (that means "fired" in Civil Service) because my dog chewed up the seat belts in the K9 unit and I refused to pay for them (that means I organized the troops and formed a union). Then I got fired again over trumped up stuff when they discovered it wasn't legal to fire me for not paying for the seat belts (meaning for forming a union). I was reinstated and received back pay. Twice. And I was still there when he turned in his resignation. So there you have it, the background on why I tend to so aggressively defend individual officers and try so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But the point I'm trying to make over all is that I have suspicions that this whole episode may have been a bit unfair. The media vilification of this guy just nauseates me. He did a 'bad' thing...that doesn't automatically mean he is a bad person and should have his entire career destroyed.

And yes, I am a political conservative, and don't like to admit that I was once an AFL-CIO Union affiliate president, but when you need union attorneys, you need union attorneys.

[flintknapper]

tfrazier wrote:

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

I'm guessing the sergeant said that more for your benefit than anything else. Surely, he does not support the practice of poor performance (the basis of the reprimand) on a 50% scale as compared to good procedure. To say otherwise is to admit he "expects" behavior worthy of reprimand at least half the time from his officers. Worse yet, he condones it.

Well, anyone who has been in law enforcement any length of time, especially in a smaller department OR in a politically charged Sheriff's Office will probably agree that reprimands are not always appropriate, and are sometimes used to make an officer a scapegoat. Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, etc are human, too, and sometimes they lose their objectivity just like everyone else. Just like sometimes the commendations stack up for the "golden boy" who happens to be the Captain's son's best friend from high school.

And 50/50 reprimands vs. commendations is actually pretty believable if you work in a department where the top brass is regularly giving officers three-day suspensions without pay because they exceeded the "20 mph over the speed limit maximum" pursuit policy in chasing down an armed robber. Or ordering commanders to write up officers every time a released prisoner showed up claiming the officer put the hand cuffs on too tight, IMMEDIATELY after hearing the complaint and without giving the officer any opportunity to respond. That's the sort of thing that causes 30 of 32 officers to form the first ever patrolman's union in a town...and gets the K9 officer on the front page of the paper as the president. Having served under three different chiefs, two were outstanding. One gave me an indefinite suspension without pay (that means "fired" in Civil Service) because my dog chewed up the seat belts in the K9 unit and I refused to pay for them (that means I organized the troops and formed a union). Then I got fired again over trumped up stuff when they discovered it wasn't legal to fire me for not paying for the seat belts (meaning for forming a union). I was reinstated and received back pay. Twice. And I was still there when he turned in his resignation. So there you have it, the background on why I tend to so aggressively defend individual officers and try so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But the point I'm trying to make over all is that I have suspicions that this whole episode may have been a bit unfair. The media vilification of this guy just nauseates me. He did a 'bad' thing...that doesn't automatically mean he is a bad person and should have his entire career destroyed.

And yes, I am a political conservative, and don't like to admit that I was once an AFL-CIO Union affiliate president, but when you need union attorneys, you need union attorneys.

Well, that does make things more understandable in your case.

Sounds like...in the end, you and the dog came out on top. The dog was probably just a little stressed.

[Liberty]

Are you saying that if the Plano cop did not come forward and DPD found out another way, they would discipline the officer ? I am saying that he would have gotten a slap on the wrist if that plus if the media did not have the story, all of these other cases would not be coming out so DPD would not know the extent of the problem they have. I do believe in taking care of things internally but that does not mean ignoring the problem. Trust me, there would not of been the news conference and public apology if the media did not have a hold of this.

As I understand it the the Plano officer went to the Dallas deapertment. I don't have any reason to believe that the Department would not have handled it appropriately. To acuse a department of what they may have done instead of for what they did is pretty unfair.

[barres]

tfrazier wrote:

Like a salty old sergeant at Greenville P.D. told me when he was blemishing my beautiful stack of commendations with my first reprimand, "Get over it. If you don't have a stack of reprimands at least as thick as your stack of commendations, you ain't been doing your job."

I'm guessing the sergeant said that more for your benefit than anything else. Surely, he does not support the practice of poor performance (the basis of the reprimand) on a 50% scale as compared to good procedure. To say otherwise is to admit he "expects" behavior worthy of reprimand at least half the time from his officers. Worse yet, he condones it.

Well, anyone who has been in law enforcement any length of time, especially in a smaller department OR in a politically charged Sheriff's Office will probably agree that reprimands are not always appropriate, and are sometimes used to make an officer a scapegoat. Sergeants, Lieutenants, Captains, etc are human, too, and sometimes they lose their objectivity just like everyone else. Just like sometimes the commendations stack up for the "golden boy" who happens to be the Captain's son's best friend from high school.

And 50/50 reprimands vs. commendations is actually pretty believable if you work in a department where the top brass is regularly giving officers three-day suspensions without pay because they exceeded the "20 mph over the speed limit maximum" pursuit policy in chasing down an armed robber. Or ordering commanders to write up officers every time a released prisoner showed up claiming the officer put the hand cuffs on too tight, IMMEDIATELY after hearing the complaint and without giving the officer any opportunity to respond. That's the sort of thing that causes 30 of 32 officers to form the first ever patrolman's union in a town...and gets the K9 officer on the front page of the paper as the president. Having served under three different chiefs, two were outstanding. One gave me an indefinite suspension without pay (that means "fired" in Civil Service) because my dog chewed up the seat belts in the K9 unit and I refused to pay for them (that means I organized the troops and formed a union). Then I got fired again over trumped up stuff when they discovered it wasn't legal to fire me for not paying for the seat belts (meaning for forming a union). I was reinstated and received back pay. Twice. And I was still there when he turned in his resignation. So there you have it, the background on why I tend to so aggressively defend individual officers and try so hard to give them the benefit of the doubt.

But the point I'm trying to make over all is that I have suspicions that this whole episode may have been a bit unfair. The media vilification of this guy just nauseates me. He did a 'bad' thing...that doesn't automatically mean he is a bad person and should have his entire career destroyed.

And yes, I am a political conservative, and don't like to admit that I was once an AFL-CIO Union affiliate president, but when you need union attorneys, you need union attorneys.

Well, that does make things more understandable in your case.

Sounds like...in the end, you and the dog came out on top. The dog was probably just a little stressed.

I think he should have gotten the dog to return the seatbelts to the chief. Preferably in a steaming pile on his desk.

[DoubleJ]

I think he should have gotten the dog to return the seatbelts to the chief. Preferably in a steaming pile on his desk.