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[skippy49]

Just heard that the cop that killed one biker and critically injured two others last week was found legally drunk while on duty---I think it said .19 which is over twice the limit in Indiana.
  Even cops are killing us now--maybe this one won't get away.

http://www.indystar.com/article/20100811/NEWS02/100811007/Cop-cited-in-accident-turns-himself-in

[JCZ]

Man, what is going on?

Here in the Sacramento area there are several on trial right now.  A sherriff's deputy had his brother kill a CDC (Calif. prison system) corrections officer because he was having an affair with the deputy's wife.  A CHP officer was arrested as he completed his shift, for being under the influence of methampetamines........more were found in his car and home.  A few weeks later he was arrested again for solicitation of murder of the informant who told on him in the first place.  His girlfriend (on the news looked to be a real tweaker) was also busted for under the influence, possession, etc. etc.

Up in El Dorado county there's a Sargent on trial for killing his ex-wife and it goes on and on.  Then  there was the one that was cited for speeding and reckless driving but wasn't arrested nor was his vehicle impounded (normal proceudre for reckless driving). 

Makes one wonder.......have they loosened the standards or what?

[kraut]

no -  it's a matter of misunderstood "esprit de corps" we observe with almost any police force werever you look. It starts with backing up your buddy, leads to neglecting regular standards and in the end invites to just feel exempt form the laws applying to the rest of the world ...

The group will be the more vulnerabele for this disease if it's a locally recruited force and no special professional education is mandatory.

[wolfman]

Cops doodes, the original NARCS......

[Blazo]

Man, what is going on?

Here in the Sacramento area there are several on trial right now.  A sherriff's deputy had his brother kill a CDC (Calif. prison system) corrections officer because he was having an affair with the deputy's wife.  A CHP officer was arrested as he completed his shift, for being under the influence of methampetamines........more were found in his car and home.  A few weeks later he was arrested again for solicitation of murder of the informant who told on him in the first place.  His girlfriend (on the news looked to be a real tweaker) was also busted for under the influence, possession, etc. etc.

Up in El Dorado county there's a Sargent on trial for killing his ex-wife and it goes on and on.  Then  there was the one that was cited for speeding and reckless driving but wasn't arrested nor was his vehicle impounded (normal proceudre for reckless driving). 

Makes one wonder.......have they loosened the standards or what?

What's next? Is somebody gonna tell me there is no Santa?

[CBW]

That is really screwed up 

[Sklywag]

Man, what is going on?
Makes one wonder.......have they loosened the standards or what?

While the answer is not 'yes' the issue that has developed over the last 20 years is a lack of military personnel that are coming out of the military & becoming police officers.  For many years people were putting 4 yrs + in the military then going into law enforcement, when that changed the quality of officers changed.  This isn't to say that only ex military make good LEO's they just contributed a significant amount of more mature individuals to it.  Now with military service being voluntary & the # of military folks being lower the pool of candidates for law enforcement is lower.

I was talking with a retired LEO her in Phoenix a few weeks ago, he was telling me that the average age of officers in Phoenix is 25 to 30 & the average length of time on the force is 3 years.  They are being promoted to Sgt, Lt with only 4 or 5 years of experience.

So there you have it, look around & you will probably see similiar trends in your area.  It isn't that they are bad candidates as a whole, but it certainly opens the door to issues, especially when they don't have guidance by moe seasoned officers.

Just my thoughts....

[Chains]

Hey in Alabama, you can hire them to protect you no matter what you are up to.  Seems a little out of whack

[skippy49]

Here's the link to the story.  We all figured he'd get off and they've got a good start on getting him off now.  How can anyone have any respect for law enforcement people anymore?
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100819/NEWS02/8190485/Cop-s-blood-draw-not-admissible-in-court

   Sure makes me not want to go to Indy and I need to tomorrow morning.

[Gettinold]

Here's the link to the story.  We all figured he'd get off and they've got a good start on getting him off now.  How can anyone have any respect for law enforcement people anymore?
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100819/NEWS02/8190485/Cop-s-blood-draw-not-admissible-in-court

   Sure makes me not want to go to Indy and I need to tomorrow morning.

Skip
Don't let this make you feel you can't  respect law enforcement, because of the action of a incident. It's every where, we just don't see it, or they get away with it. Alcoholism  is in every line of profession there is, especially law enforcement, because of the high stress factor and the fact that they have one of the most dangerous day to day jobs there is.
What ever your doing in Indy get out and enjoy the town, it's a Great City. 

[OhioDave]

Here's the link to the story.  We all figured he'd get off and they've got a good start on getting him off now.  How can anyone have any respect for law enforcement people anymore?
http://www.indystar.com/article/20100819/NEWS02/8190485/Cop-s-blood-draw-not-admissible-in-court

   Sure makes me not want to go to Indy and I need to tomorrow morning.

This makes you not respect the thousands of honest hard working men and women in law enforcement? Your kidding right.. Attorneys get people out of similar situations every day, it just doesn't make the news.

[skippy49]

Skip
Don't let this make you feel you can't  respect law enforcement, because of the action of a incident. It's every where, we just don't see it, or they get away with it. Alcoholism  is in every line of profession there is, especially law enforcement, because of the high stress factor and the fact that they have one of the most dangerous day to day jobs there is.
What ever your doing in Indy get out and enjoy the town, it's a Great City. 

  Sorry, but my respect was fairly low to begin with due to our local Sheriff's dept, which I am more familiar with.  If this doesn't smell of a cover up I sure don't know what does.  They took the guy to the wrong place for a blood draw.  Come on now, how many times does that happen? If this guy is an alcoholic then others around him had to know-you just can't cover that up forever.  Law enforcement needs to earn respect and I don't know how it is where you live but around here it's almost a laughing matter.  Indianapolis is not a "Great City" anymore.  They have killings every night, even the prosecutor and mayor agree they have a problem.  If you want to discuss the stress and danger, I farm for a living and I can tell you to look it up anywhere you want to but farming is a more dangerous occupation than law enforcement---the one I saw put farmers at #5 and law enforcement #10.  Stress and danger shouldn't make a difference anyway, the people involved have to learn to deal with it and drinking on the job is not the way to do it-whether you're a farmer or a cop.  LIke I said before, law enforcement has to earn respect and around here there are plenty that aren't doing that.  I'll give you that there are probably many that are good but all we've seen lately is the bad.  And the cleanup of the department needs to start at the top, mayor on down.  Too many times this just gets swept under the rug and disappears and it's time for it to stop.  I can assure you that if I had killed that biker while I was drunk I'd still be sitting in jail awaiting trial----it needs to be equal for all.

[skippy49]

  Anyone concerned can go to the article I listed above and read all the comments left and you'll soon see I'm not alone in how I feel about it.

[Robmay]

  Sorry, but my respect was fairly low to begin with due to our local Sheriff's dept, which I am more familiar with.  If this doesn't smell of a cover up I sure don't know what does.  They took the guy to the wrong place for a blood draw.  Come on now, how many times does that happen? If this guy is an alcoholic then others around him had to know-you just can't cover that up forever.  Law enforcement needs to earn respect and I don't know how it is where you live but around here it's almost a laughing matter.  Indianapolis is not a "Great City" anymore.  They have killings every night, even the prosecutor and mayor agree they have a problem.  If you want to discuss the stress and danger, I farm for a living and I can tell you to look it up anywhere you want to but farming is a more dangerous occupation than law enforcement---the one I saw put farmers at #5 and law enforcement #10.  Stress and danger shouldn't make a difference anyway, the people involved have to learn to deal with it and drinking on the job is not the way to do it-whether you're a farmer or a cop.  LIke I said before, law enforcement has to earn respect and around here there are plenty that aren't doing that.  I'll give you that there are probably many that are good but all we've seen lately is the bad.  And the cleanup of the department needs to start at the top, mayor on down.  Too many times this just gets swept under the rug and disappears and it's time for it to stop.  I can assure you that if I had killed that biker while I was drunk I'd still be sitting in jail awaiting trial----it needs to be equal for all.

I'll be..... googled it and sure enough, out of the 15 most dangerous in the U.S., Po-po was #10 and Farmers/Ranchers #5....

[kraut]

some more of this topic. Seems just the sort of cover-up one had to expect ...

[Screamin]

'Tis B.S. 'Spose they would of bungled the test if a motorcyclist killed a cop?

http://www.thetowntalk.com/article/20100820/NEWS01/100820017

[indcoltz]

Please don't profile your law enforcement because of a few bad ones out there, there are still alot of good ones. The biggest problem is they have had to lower the standards to get people to do the job. I can remember coming to work one day and a Deputy out of Florida was there trying to recruit us to come to work. They have this problem with hiring African Americans they don't get enough to apply so they lower the standards by offering them exceptions like you don't have to have a college education or we can overlook the prior arrests you have. They want women to apply so they change the physical qualifications. Guys I can go on and on about how things have changed. Would you take a job that required you to run code 3 and because some idiot would not get out of your way or cut in front of you you now just lost your home and job because of a tort claim againest you?? When I hired on if you had ever been arrested for a misdemeanor you could forget it and even some traffic citations. By the way this has changed in the las 10 years. So ask yourself why do they have to hire from the bottom of the barrel??? I know I'm going to hear a bunch of crap about how cops are bad, but they are not all bad we just love to find the ones that are. An Indiana State Trooper right here in my home town was running code 3 at 11:00 PM on a state highway, a guy that made a right turn on red pulls out in front of the Trooper, the man was killed, the Trooper went to prison for manslaughter and he was on a legitamate call, how many of you want this job??

[Spiderman]

Picture a world without crime and no need for Law Enforcement.  Unrealistic expectation isn't it ?
Now picture a world with No Law Enforcement. Pretty scary thought.
Everything in life has a price. The price of security for the vast majority is incidents such as this.
I am not going to go off on a rampage about every cop in the world because of this POS. And yes he's a POS, deserves to be judge to a higher standard than the average citizen and should be given the death sentence. Why a higher standard ? Because he chose this career. He took an oath to uphold and preserve the law. Not that you and I shouldn't either but we didn't make it our life's work to enforce the law. In my opinion, those that do should suffer far far harsher penalties. Beyond that, in my lifetime and especially in my biker lifetime, I've met every manner of LEO you could imagine. Some were extremely professional, courteous and even humorous in situations where I didn't deserve much of any of those traits. Some were total and complete A-holes in situations where I deserved better. Cops are people and people have good days and bad. As I said above, I am not going to judge every good cop by every bad cop. I just feel that we as a nation need to come down harder on the bad cops, twice as hard as we would on every day citizens. This guy will plea bargain this down to manslaughter and probably serve no more than 5-7 years in prison. That thought angers me but if past experience is any guage, I'll bet I'm pretty accurate in my assessment. So that brings the entire system of justice into question for the average citizen. Therein lies my beef

 Just my $0.02

B B

[skippy49]

I can agree somewhat with both of the previous posts.  There are good and bad in everything, but a bad cop is especially bad.   I  hope you're right that he serves some time over this, but I'm betting that he serves no time at all.  I'm guessing the only thing that will happen is that the family of the dead man will sue and they will probably recover some damages.  Kind of like OJ's trial.

[dooinit2u]

What's next? Is somebody gonna tell me there is no Santa?

Sorry to tell ya, but ...

[kraut]

don't exaggerate - even LEO's are human beeings and have their bad days. There is nobody who has no fault. It's just a matter of good or bad luck if you heart nobody or someone seriously on such a day. Nobody tell me there have been no such days in all of your livetime.

Not excuse intended - but perhaps you may try to understand the dilemma of the judge ...

[skippy49]

don't exaggerate - even LEO's are human beeings and have their bad days. There is nobody who has no fault. It's just a matter of good or bad luck if you heart nobody or someone seriously on such a day. Nobody tell me there have been no such days in all of your livetime.

Not excuse intended - but perhaps you may try to understand the dilemma of the judge ...

 I hope you're not talking about the cop that plowed into the bikers in Indy.  He was drunk on duty.  That's not good or bad luck and he should be off the force immediately, but isn't.

[bigjohn]

I was talking with a retired LEO her in Phoenix a few weeks ago, he was telling me that the average age of officers in Phoenix is 25 to 30 & the average length of time on the force is 3 years.  They are being promoted to Sgt, Lt with only 4 or 5 years of experience.

So there you have it, look around & you will probably see similiar trends in your area.  It isn't that they are bad candidates as a whole, but it certainly opens the door to issues, especially when they don't have guidance by moe seasoned officers.

That is exactly whats going on. I had to retire because i couldnt take it anymore. We called them five yr wonders. I saw people making captains grade in less than five yrs and then they wonder why everything is so screwed up. I had more time in the chitter than they had on duty. twenty one yrs fed law enforcement was enough for me, I know they had to have changed the exams to get in, because some of the peolpe i saw getting hired should have had warrants being served on them.

[indcoltz]

I'm not saying in any manner the Indy Cop should get away with anything, lets just wait for the facts. The media loves to blow everything out of proportion, that's the only way they can get you to read or listen to the news. Just like the Rodney King beating, the media never showed the whole tape to the public. They never showed the first couple of minutes of this tape because if they would have it wouldn't have drawn the attention that it did. The media needs to be held accountable for some of the crap they put out. If the cop was drinking regardless of on duty or not he should do the time, I just hate it when people start up with saying that all cops get away with everything and I'm here to tell you this IS NOT TRUE!!!

[Spiderman]

This thread has gone far enough off track. I will attempt to return to the real reason we post these kinds of topics as a motorcycle forum  - - - - - -My condolences to the victim and his loved ones.

B B

[skippy49]

I'm not saying in any manner the Indy Cop should get away with anything, lets just wait for the facts. The media loves to blow everything out of proportion, that's the only way they can get you to read or listen to the news. Just like the Rodney King beating, the media never showed the whole tape to the public. They never showed the first couple of minutes of this tape because if they would have it wouldn't have drawn the attention that it did. The media needs to be held accountable for some of the crap they put out. If the cop was drinking regardless of on duty or not he should do the time, I just hate it when people start up with saying that all cops get away with everything and I'm here to tell you this IS NOT TRUE!!!

  Just happened across this again and saw your post.  I think the facts are pretty clear in this case.  I would be greatly surprised if this cop gets anything more than a hand slap after this is all over.  They're going to drag this out until the public forgets and then let him off really lightly.  My experiences with law enforcement through the years has certainly lowered my opinion of them.  Put it this way, I live in the country and I won't call them for anything that happens out here unless someone would be killed.  They don't care and have no interest in investigating anything, period.  Our county could fire half or more of their department and no one would ever miss them.

[spydglide]

Anyone see recent follow-up news on this 'accident'?  spyder

[porthole]

Anyone see recent follow-up news on this 'accident'?  spyder

All old links that lead to "pay to view" articles.
Criminally he may get away with it, civilly though the employer/employee will most likely lose.


Comparing this to our state, there seems to be no coverups anymore. There have been over a dozen DUI/DWI incidents involving LEO's in the last 10 years, and they all ended up badly for the LEO. And in several cases the victims.
And there are plenty more that we just don't here about, e.g. caught DUI on duty - fired.

Although we all have to keep in mind, there are laws that protect the substance abuser. Not so easy anymore to just fire someone because they misuse alcohol or drugs (legal on not).

[porthole]

An Indiana State Trooper right here in my home town was running code 3 at 11:00 PM on a state highway, a guy that made a right turn on red pulls out in front of the Trooper, the man was killed, the Trooper went to prison for manslaughter and he was on a legitamate call

Has to be more then just a failure to yield here.

[skippy49]

Anyone see recent follow-up news on this 'accident'?  spyder

They actually mentioned it on the local tv news last night but I was doing something else and did not see it other than just a glimpse at the end of it.  I think one of the local tv stations is trying to keep up with it some.  Either www.wthr.com or www.wishtv.com is covering it., don't remember which.

[dlaws01]

no -  it's a matter of misunderstood "esprit de corps" we observe with almost any police force werever you look. It starts with backing up your buddy, leads to neglecting regular standards and in the end invites to just feel exempt form the laws applying to the rest of the world ...

The group will be the more vulnerabele for this disease if it's a locally recruited force and no special professional education is mandatory.




I hate to admit it but around where I live (small town USA) If your friends with the Sheriff or Chief and you fit one of the uniforms, then you're a deputy or a cop. That is if you don't mind getting your training by watching Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show!

[smkymtnboy]

no -  it's a matter of misunderstood "esprit de corps" we observe with almost any police force werever you look. It starts with backing up your buddy, leads to neglecting regular standards and in the end invites to just feel exempt form the laws applying to the rest of the world ...

The group will be the more vulnerabele for this disease if it's a locally recruited force and no special professional education is mandatory.




I hate to admit it but around where I live (small town USA) If your friends with the Sheriff or Chief and you fit one of the uniforms, then you're a deputy or a cop. That is if you don't mind getting your training by watching Barney Fife on the Andy Griffith Show!

they could learn a lot from Andy.we will leave Barney out of this!!

[2k]

There are good and bad in all walks of life. I try an never judge one based on anothers actions. This comes mainly from being labeled "Biker Trash" years ago. 30 yrs later I ride a CVO, so I'm a RUB. Some things never change!

[Spiderman]

  Just happened across this again and saw your post.  I think the facts are pretty clear in this case.  I would be greatly surprised if this cop gets anything more than a hand slap after this is all over.  They're going to drag this out until the public forgets and then let him off really lightly.  My experiences with law enforcement through the years has certainly lowered my opinion of them.  Put it this way, I live in the country and I won't call them for anything that happens out here unless someone would be killed.  They don't care and have no interest in investigating anything, period.  Our county could fire half or more of their department and no one would ever miss them.

Being in law enforcement is at best a tough job. At worst, it sucks royally. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Now lest anyone think I am a far right leaning supporter of any police action, let me say, I'll wager I've spent more time on the side of the road with a cruiser in front of me and another behind me than the majority of you. No reason to get into the why of that, just accept that I'm speakiing the truth. And yet, for all of that, I have a lot of respect for law enforcement. The good ones even in bad situations treat you with respect for your rights and courtesy. They've learned over the years that acting the asshole, gets you the same in return. And you know, if you just act respectfully toward them, most of the time you can get through whatever the issue is with minimum hassle.
NOW, having said all that, there are bad cops just like there are bad priests and lousy doctors and crappy dentists and so forth. People are people irregardless of what they do for a living. Should I hate every Catholic Priest in the world because a bunch of them were/are pedophiles. That's about where we're at with Muslims and I can't see that our attitude there is getting us anywhere. OK, this is borderline political so l'll stop here. I think y'all get my drift

B B