Has anyone noticed that after someone is shot by the police, the first
thing that happens is Robert Olson comes out and says that his officers
did the right thing.
How come when the Minneapolis reports on racial profiling came out there
were immediate responses like: (taken from a Jan 21 StarTribune article)
"Releasing the data in this way has unfairly accused these officers of
being racist when they know that they are not"
--Dennis Flaherty, executive director of the Minnesota Peace and Police
Officers Association (referring to the fact the the racial profiling data
was broken down by race, which made it look the police where
disproportionately stopping minorities, which they were)
OR how about this one
"The chief gave us his word that when CODEFOR started and officers would
get complaints, he would back us up,"
--Sgt. John Delmonico, president of the Minneapolis Police Officers
Federation
The Minnesota Peace and Police Officers Association complained that the
data was inconclusive because the reasons for the stops were not
recorded. However, they, along with the Minnesota Chiefs of Police
Association and the Minnesota Sheriffs' Association, sent a
letter to legislators opposing any bill that would mandate collecting such
data during traffic stops, saying "The time and costs aren't justified
considering the other priorities of law enforcement in their efforts to
reduce crime and such studies won't produce meaningful information."
These seem to me like unofficial support of police profiling and brutality
to me. They do not condone or actively support brutality, but they show
that there are people and organizations that are dragging there feet when
it comes to dealing with it.
This information is more disturbing when you look at it next to the
statistic that across the nation, police officers are more likely to be
spousal abusers than are people from any other occupation. Do they hire
thugs? Does police culture foster a "knock their heads in" mentality? Or
is the job just stressful? For whatever reason you choose to believe,
the fact remains that after a few years as an officer, some people can't
take it. We need the police chief to recognize that he and his employees
are public servants. Sometimes protecting the community and protecting
the officers are in conflict. In these situations, we should demand that
the police departments look after the community's rights first.
We have given police officers more rights than regular citizens. But
we did not given them less responsibilities than regular citizens. When
police officers are not being responsible to the community (by beating or
shooting people. by harrassing people based on their appearance, race, or
whatever. even by simply ignoring traffic laws that apply to the rest of
us) we should be able to look to the police chief for support.
If the police chief chooses to support the officers instead of us, then he
is unofficially condoning these practices.
-Benjamin Marzinski
Ward 6
On Wed, 31 Jan 2001, Rich McMartin wrote:
> > During the ISAG protests, officers kept their badges out of sight and
> > refused verbal requests for their badge numbers>
>
> Rich McMartin wrote:
> > >Show us the evidence of this unofficial policy. Find the officers and the
> > supervisors you were told, verbally or in memos, to execute this unofficial
> > policy.
>
> That is, er ah... ahem... the sort of thing that I, ah meant...
>
> I am confused as to how my statement above erodes anyone's first amendment
> rights though. I only ask that you to substantiate your claims -- which
> R.N. did with an example. Hiding badge numbers is bad and should be
> investigated.
>
> Perhaps there have been other such examples in previous posts, and I
> apologize if I have not read all of the posts and missed them.
>
> Rich McMartin
> Bryant Neighborhood.
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