I was pleased to be host to the chief of police of this town tonight, for some barbeque and beer and hanging out by the pool. The chief happens to be my attorney's boyfriend, which I can't help but feel is going to come in handy some day. But anyway. I asked the chief about this story which I posted here last month, about the Broward County, FL sheriff who justified his use of pepper spray on a defiant twelve-year-old girl. I am pleased to say that he was apalled. This led to a rather lengthy conversation about psych profiles which are required of officers in nearly every city in America, and then got a little tense when I suggested that while I respect police officers for the difficult, thankless and often dangerous work that they do, an awful lot of them -- including ones under my guest's watch -- did not appear to be exactly superhero types when it came to their morals and/or intelligence.
Nonetheless, I think it's a valid point: police officers should not only be screened to try to weed out potential psycopaths, but also to weed out those who simply are not going to be of any use in a real crisis situation. You can often judge a person's crisis management skills by his actions in a non-crisis situation, such as the aforementioned Broward County officer who I would hate to see "handling" a mob of protesting college students circa 1968 (blanket fire from an M-16, or perhaps calling in a napalm strike comes to mind.)
And lo and behold, as I am on my nightly webcrawl I find a story about yet another cop gone mad with cowardice, this time one who shot an advancing dog and killed it. Well now, I know that an advancing dog can be a scary thing and all that. But here's the punch line: the dog was a fvcking Cocker Spaniel. It's name was Sprite of all ridiculous things. And now it's dead, because the officer felt "threatened" by it's "advance."
In case you are unfamiliar with this breed of fearsome man-killers, here's a picture courtesy of DogBreedInfo.com:
According to the AKC website,
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The American Cocker Spaniel, or "Piranha of the Suburbs", is one of the deadliest land predators known to man, far surpassing such better-known carnivores as the cheetah and the crocodile. By virtue of it's beguilingly friendly nature the ACS has caused countless tragic losses of life since it was first unleashed upon America as an early experiment in genetically-engineered bioweapons by Saddam Hussein (evidence pending.) If you see one, shoot it dead as disco. If you don't have a gun, just go ahead and make your peace with Jesus, because you are shit out of luck.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
To add insult to injury, the owner was fined $ 120.00 for failure to have her dog on a leash. To make things even more grotesque, the only reason the dog and it's owner were even out and about at that time of night was an emergency trip to a friend's to talk him out of a threatened suicide.
As usual, the (Milwaukee) police department's stock response was to stand by it's officer's actions, citing "unusual circumstances" and the peculiar notion of "officer's discretion" in handling the situations which are often unique to the work of a police officer. But I'm sorry -- just like a grown man who can't emotionally handle a twelve-year-old girl being a bitch to him, a grown man sufficently frightened of a "charging" Cocker Spaniel to use deadly force is a pussy, plain and simple, and the fact that these particular grown men have used their badges to hide behind behaviour which would have them lynched were they "ordinary citizens" only adds to my suspicion that underneath those navy blue uniforms are some frilly black panties from Frederick's, and that God only knows where that baton he's carrying has been.
Phaedrus
Nonetheless, I think it's a valid point: police officers should not only be screened to try to weed out potential psycopaths, but also to weed out those who simply are not going to be of any use in a real crisis situation. You can often judge a person's crisis management skills by his actions in a non-crisis situation, such as the aforementioned Broward County officer who I would hate to see "handling" a mob of protesting college students circa 1968 (blanket fire from an M-16, or perhaps calling in a napalm strike comes to mind.)
And lo and behold, as I am on my nightly webcrawl I find a story about yet another cop gone mad with cowardice, this time one who shot an advancing dog and killed it. Well now, I know that an advancing dog can be a scary thing and all that. But here's the punch line: the dog was a fvcking Cocker Spaniel. It's name was Sprite of all ridiculous things. And now it's dead, because the officer felt "threatened" by it's "advance."
In case you are unfamiliar with this breed of fearsome man-killers, here's a picture courtesy of DogBreedInfo.com:
According to the AKC website,
<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><font size="-1">quote:</font><HR>The American Cocker Spaniel, or "Piranha of the Suburbs", is one of the deadliest land predators known to man, far surpassing such better-known carnivores as the cheetah and the crocodile. By virtue of it's beguilingly friendly nature the ACS has caused countless tragic losses of life since it was first unleashed upon America as an early experiment in genetically-engineered bioweapons by Saddam Hussein (evidence pending.) If you see one, shoot it dead as disco. If you don't have a gun, just go ahead and make your peace with Jesus, because you are shit out of luck.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>
To add insult to injury, the owner was fined $ 120.00 for failure to have her dog on a leash. To make things even more grotesque, the only reason the dog and it's owner were even out and about at that time of night was an emergency trip to a friend's to talk him out of a threatened suicide.
As usual, the (Milwaukee) police department's stock response was to stand by it's officer's actions, citing "unusual circumstances" and the peculiar notion of "officer's discretion" in handling the situations which are often unique to the work of a police officer. But I'm sorry -- just like a grown man who can't emotionally handle a twelve-year-old girl being a bitch to him, a grown man sufficently frightened of a "charging" Cocker Spaniel to use deadly force is a pussy, plain and simple, and the fact that these particular grown men have used their badges to hide behind behaviour which would have them lynched were they "ordinary citizens" only adds to my suspicion that underneath those navy blue uniforms are some frilly black panties from Frederick's, and that God only knows where that baton he's carrying has been.
Phaedrus
