Again?
The latest incident is about as "minor" as a DUI hit-and-run can be, at least for the victim -- a construction worker got whacked by a pickup truck's side mirror and told his boss, who hightailed it after the truck, caught up...and lo, behind the wheel was an IMPD lieutenant, unaware that he'd hit anyone and, as it turned out, in no condition to be driving. (Details from Tam.)
At least it wasn't a squad car.
He'd been with the department for 35 years.
...Okay, look, it's a stressful job; we get that. Way too many public safety workers find life easier to take through the bottom of a bottle. But in light of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department's ongoing embarrassment over intoxicated officers, wouldn't it behoove department members to take extra care to at least observe the 11th Commandment, if not The Pledge?
Watch the watchmen? Guard the guardians? Oh, that's long past. We're gonna have to figure out who'll cut them off before they go a glass to far -- or confiscate their car keys if it's too late for that.
How must the decent cops in the IMPD feel about all of this???
ReplyDeleteThat puts me in mind of this:
ReplyDeleteThe Coming of the Next American Republic
at the local level.
The system is losing legitimacy. Get them to reform themselves? Pardon my thought that you are having a lovely, beautiful dream.
Mike James
Sorry about the "dream" crack, I sort of got your post and Tam's on the same topic mixed up, having read them one after the other. You clearly hold out no hope that your PD will be reformed, Tam seems to think the county prosecutor can do some good.
ReplyDeleteMe stupid.
Mike James
The spam is getting more inventive.
ReplyDeleteOT: Real wooden victorian Italian submarine: http://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2008/08/submarines-1.html
ReplyDelete35 years? Wonder where he plans on retiring, Florida or Arizona? Something tells me he's gonna be moving sooner than he thought.
ReplyDelete35 years? Wonder where he plans on retiring, Florida or Arizona? Something tells me he's gonna be moving sooner than he thought.
ReplyDeleteAn LT?
ReplyDeleteHis only stress is politics and paper cuts.
Maybe you're right, Skip. Maybe he waltzed right in with a shiny new degree, was handed nifty insignia, and has sat behind a desk for 35 years redesigning requisition forms -- it doesn't matter much if he's in an environment where you let off steam at the end of the day by getting a buzz on: not everyone can do that and go back to the non-buzzed world the next day.
ReplyDeleteWhich kind of ties into Mike James' comments on "reform." You know what? There never was a police department composed of Eagle Scouts and pure & perfect knights; it's rough work and there are some rough folk doing it. All I expect is for them to keep it under the cultural noise level. This, IMPD is not doing.
They may, in fact, be capable of that level of "reforming." But will they? Jury is still out.