Saturday, April 16, 2016

What Weapon???????????

Has it come to cops thinking a holster is a weapon? It seems so because not only did someone call in a bogus call to campus police that a man had an "unconcealed weapon" but the officers were responded and acted as if a holster, an empty on at that, amounted to a weapon (source).



As for the attitude of the 'suspect' versus that of the officers, I think the student was much more respectful than the officers (mind you the kind of wise arse student was apparently someone off camera). I think the white haired cop should be retrained on how to deal effectively and respectfully with the public and possibly disciplined because of his piss poor attitude and his seeming total disrespect for a citizen. His stepping back later did nothing to alleviate what had already passed, in my opinion.

The other officer was more respectful but I had to wonder, how many times did the guy have to tell him he did not have a weapon? That officer's insistence that the student needed permission from the school to wear an empty holster was foolish at best and apparently a total misinterpretation of the rules as is evidenced by the fact that the citation he issued to the student was later rescinded by the school. Writing him a citation was not only ridiculous but evidently without legal merit at all. The officers may have also failed understand who was, and deal with, the real troublemaker in this incident, the person who called in a student with an "unconcealed weapon". I have to wonder again - what weapon!

I understand them checking out the call but the way they did was all wrong. Once they confirmed the student was unarmed they should have bid him good day and been on their way to educate the caller who initiated the whole mess in the first place. No matter how you look at it, a man wearing an empty holster is not a man carrying an "unconcealed weapon"!

All the best,
Glenn B

2 comments:

B said...

I am led to understand that the Chief not only dropped the charges, but invited the kid to the station so that the occifers involved could "apologize".....

Glenn B said...

Well, that was a good thing. I literally almost fell out of my chair when the white haired guy told the kid that the kid had to be polite to police. I was in LE for 32 years an I appreciated it when people wit whom I dealt were polite. I was virtually always polite, courteous and respectful when I dealt with folks, even those I was arresting (until they did not deserve that respect and even then I tried to act reserved). I never liked it when others who worked with me were arsehats like these two guys, especially the white haired one. Now, as for the guy off camera who kept chuckling, when I was a kid, a cop would have beat your arse from here to Canarsie - as we said back then - for being a twittering jerk as he evidently was acting. It is nice to know though that a superior officer saw the problem and that the attitude of the officers only made it worse that they were rudely enforcing a rule that did not exist.