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Makin’ all the rules
Police officers are excellent rule followers. Law enforcement agencies are paramilitary in nature. Accordingly, there is a chain of com- mand and rules are meant to be followed. Colo- nel Jessup put it best in the movie “A Few Good Men” when he testified, “We follow orders, son. We follow orders or people die. It’s that simple. Are we clear?”
When a supervisor tells an officer to stand on a corner, that officer stands on the corner. No ques- tions asked. I’m reminded of the “Seinfeld” episode where George could not understand why the de- partment store security guard stood the entire time during his shift. When George asked the guard if he would rather sit in a chair, the guard answered, “Sure
but they never offered me a chair.” Sitting was against
the rules.
Following the rules is part of the job description. The same should hold true for supervisors and elected officials. They, too, should be forced to follow the rules in place, not some rule created after the fact. It would be utterly unfair to apply a newly created rule retroactively. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is being done in the present climate. The rules at issue are state law and department policies. There is considerable authority granting law enforcement the right to exercise a substantial amount of force.
With the proliferation of video cameras, it is certain that the majority of police involved shootings going for- ward will be captured on video. The images depicted are going to look bad to the public because it has been con- ditioned through television and Hollywood as to how a police involved shooting should look. In the movies, when an offender points a handgun at a police officer, the officer calmly pulls out his or her weapon and fires one shot at the
offender’s hand, which causes the gun to fall and he sur- renders without a struggle. Or it will show an offend- er armed with a knife charging a police officer who seems undaunted. On TV, the officer will give the offender every opportunity to stop, and it is not un- til the very last moment when the offender leaps to- ward the officer that the officer fires one shot, caus-
ing the offender to fly backwards and drop the knife. The truth of the matter is real-life shootings don’t look so pretty. They are last-resort decisions made in split seconds. It is understandable that the public will inevitably view the police officer’s actions suspiciously; however, it is up to our leaders to speak up for the officers. The police brass who created the policy authorizing the use of force must speak up. The politicians who drafted the laws, specifically per-
mitting the use of force, must speak up.
Police brass creates department policy; state statutes
are drafted by the legislators. When things go bad, like
DANIEL HERBERT
FOP
Legal Rep t
20 CHICAGO LODGE 7 ■ OCTOBER 2016