The Unabashed Arrogance of Police Treating Police Special

Wow, this is an incredible story, or at least should be incredible, about an off duty police officer firing off an evidently negligent discharge, that certainly demonstrates the absolute arrogance of certain police and law enforcement departments to totally disregard the law when it comes to a police officer. The law, mind you, should be applied to police officers and others in law enforcement (as well as to politicians and judges) as it would be applied to anyone else. Can you imagine citizen John Doe, getting shit faced enough to go into a bar's restroom to check to see if his gun is loaded, firing a shot, and then not being arrested and criminally charged. That is what happened with this officer and the only difference between him and John Doe is that he is a police officer. So why should he have been arrested and charged and also departmentally charged: First of all, he was not authorized to have his gun with him while drinking in a bar. Secondly, he was probably drunk when he went into the rest room, checked to see if his gun was loaded (absolutely no evident reason within reason to have done) and then like an idiot (or a drunken fool) endangered the public by firing an apparently negligent and accidental discharge (I cannot imagine him firing the gun on purpose but who knows), then saunters out of the rest room back to his table, pays his bill and just leaves all apparently without immediately notifying anyone from the police department that he had fired his gun.

For that he got a 3 day suspension! I wonder if it was a paid suspension. I cannot believe he was not suspended, without pay, pending a full departmental investigation and an investigation of criminal wrongdoing by the office of the district attorney. Oh, that is right, that only usually happens if it is a non-law enforcement type who fires such a shot while drunk in a strip club.

Do they really believe that is acceptable behavior for a police officer; are they really keeping him on the job? That is unfucking believable especially when you consider he reportedly has had at least one other departmental run-in that seemingly involved a violation of law (although it is uncertain if he was the violator or just an associate).  For the Chief of Police to have said: "I know officer Delatte well and firmly believe him to be an officer of exceptional character" was absurd unless he had really meant to say that the officer was 'an exceptional character' meaning an exceptional asshole! Then again, during a previous run in with the police, it was the very same Police Chief, who was in a speeding vehicle with the very same officer, when the driver of that vehicle refused to pull over for police. To say the least, I think, the chief is less than a good judge of character and once again has shown the sometimes sheer arrogance of law enforcement disgracefully treating law enforcement officers to the special (and blatantly unethical) privilege of being over and above the law.

Hat tip to Zach over at The Next Chapter, where I first saw the link to the article.

All the best,
Glenn B