Unethical Police

The level of discourse had always been contentious in our department, but on 12/20/2008 it reached a level of depravity that shames us all.

I have long warned that politics played a major role in our department, everything from how many TASERs we have, to the color of our patrol vehicles depends on how well we sell ourselves to the citizens. Even the type of legal representation we have as officers depends on how well someone was able to convince you to join their group. We all know legal defense is critical in this job, especially in current times where a suspect’s whim is tomorrow’s IA complaint. And we have always enjoyed a level of confidentiality in our Internal Affairs department; after all, it is called “internal” affairs, and not external laundry airing. This level of confidence is essential to having complete and thorough investigations to either exonerate our fellow officers, or dole out the punishment they deserve. Never has the politics between the two labor groups crossed the line of violating that confidence until now.

By now you may know that three of our officers in Mesa had their dirty laundry aired out in the East Valley Tribune, all in the name of damning the Mesa Police Association. The IA complaints, like most of them, warrant investigation and if wrongdoing is found, then it must be corrected. But to invoke a “leak” of admonished information from IA for personal gain is not only unethical, is near illegal. And finally, to take that information and sell it to media to benefit your labor organization goes beyond unethical; it is unspeakable and shameful to your badge and the oath of office we all took.

I ask all of you to stop the arguing for a moment and think about what just happened. It should scare the hell out of you that a fellow officer felt it necessary to do this. When will it stop? Are you next? Am I next? Have you done something to the FOP that would warrant your IA file in the open media? Who knows? The officers that stand accused in these cases might have made bad choices, but do those choices warrant a public shaming all in the name of benefiting one labor group?

No matter what group you belong to, you must admit that this is low. Now is the time to take a stand against this and bring civility back to the debate.