Lawful vs. Unlawful Orders
Frank Borelli
Editor-in-Chief
Officer.com
In the course of a police career you will receive countless orders to complete some task. The very large majority of those orders will be lawful and you’ll get jammed up if you fail to obey them. BUT, some of them may be unlawful and if you do obey those then you can get jammed up even worse.
The biggest questions you have to answer for yourserlf are these:
1) Is the order I’m being given lawful?
In simplest terms, as stated above, most of them will be. Report to…. Nothing unclear about that. Complete that report and have it turned in by…. Good to go. Handcuff that suspect…. No problem. Where it can get a bit worrisome is if your lieutenant orders you to put a handcuffed suspect in a cruiser and “give him a face full of OC to remind him to be polite.” Um, HUH? Do such things happen? I’m sure they do, somewhere, somehow, some time. And, as a veteran cop of over two and a half decades, I’m also convinced there are those perpetrators out there who certainly deserve that and more. However, it’s not our job to punish the ner-do-wells. It’s our job to arrest them; process them; charge them; and then testify against them in court. The court decides their innocence or guilt, determines their punishment, orders it and then our correctional system carries out that punishment.
2) If the order isn’t lawful, what do I do?
This can be the more difficult question to answer. Obviously the legal, ethical and moral thing to do is not obey that order. That’s FAR easier said than done though, especially under circumstances where peer pressure is in line with the unlawful order and you may be facing a squad of angry fellow officers if you fail to obey that order. The good news is that, unless all those fellow officers are willing to lie in testimony against you, you can respectfully question and/or refuse that order and not face departmental charges for failing to obey a direct order. The officer who outranks you, who gave that order, if he KNOWS it’s an unlawful order, won’t be so eager to defend that order in an administrative or criminal proceeding.
Ultimately the bottom line has to be YOU and YOUR sense of morality. YOU have to look at yourself in the mirror every morning. YOU have to be able to sleep fitfully in your bed at night. If YOU can’t do both those things with a clear conscience then it would be advisable to seek out some counseling. Most agencies have chaplains available to discuss such things. If you’re not a religious person, psychologists and psychiatrists are also often available. Sometimes of even greater value, your friends should be there willing to listen to your concerns, give you honest feedback and discuss various options for action with you. If, as you read this, the “friends” you think of aren’t people you’d want to discuss such things with, then I submit to you that you probably need new (and real) friends.
I discuss lawful versus unlawful orders today because our country is experiencing a period of unrest. Not since the late ’60s and early ’70s (which I barely remember) has our country seen such disagreement over what’s right and wrong at the federal level, and what direction our American society should be growing in. Such disagreements often result in civil unrest and, if that occurs, you may be called upon in the performance of your professional duties to keep order. As you receive your orders as to how you should perform those duties, consider the orders and your actions. I’m not a constitutional scholar but I know enough to identify orders that may violate the constitutional rights of the citizens we’re sworn to protect and serve.
Remember: every famous and INfamous leader in our world’s history has justified his actions by “maintaining the peace and safety of society”. We condemn many of them now, with the hindsight benefit of history at our disposal. None of us want to be on the wrong side of that judgment…
What do you think?
I agree with you 100%. It works the same in the military (of which I am prior active duty and currently in the Army Guard). A good example would also be a buddy of mine who used to work for the Barstow, CA P.D. He recently won a law suit, after a few years worth of wrangling, in which he was given an unlawful order to do something and he refused. It was rough for him at first, but he came through it fine, has a great new job, and a pile of dough from the old employer!
The day will come, when police and/or mil officers will be tasked with disarming the citizens of this country. Then will be the time to absolutely refuse to interfere with an inalienable right…
Jack, that is my worst nightmare. Should ANYONE come to take my firearms, there will be a firefight I am afraid. I don’t necessarily intend to be on the losing end of it either. I certainly do not want to have this fight. I certainly will not allow anyone to take my firearms away either. Military or civilian.
To put my previous comment in perspective:
Everyamerican needs to wake up NOW.
From a Cop
The fear on the street is palpable. Ever since the election of Barack Obama as President of these United States in November 2008, coupled with the election of a democrat party majority in both the U.S. House and Senate, concern for the United States and personal safety has ignited like a fire in dry grass.
Sales of guns - black guns, rifles, shotguns and handguns (particularly 9mm) everywhere, have gone through the roof. AR15s have literally flown off of dealer shelves, and only now in the spring of 2009, have I seen the display samples of ARs begin to reappear on the wall of my favorite shooting emporium after the initial post election rush.
Manufacturers of ARs are still working to catch up and some of the major suppliers are as much as 150,000 guns behind. Not only that, ammo is in the shortest supply I have ever seen in the 43 years of my shooting life. Have you recently tried to get 5.56mm, 9mm or even 380 ammo?
Supplies of 5.56mm and 9mm ammo are in short supply due to the black gun buying craze; .380ACP because of the rise in people getting concealed carry permits and the resurgence of interest in convenient 380 handguns like the fine Ruger LCP. In fact, in doing a review of the Ruger LCP, my gun store only had a small supply of ONE .380 round on hand, the Winchesters 95-grain SXT, which they had just gotten in. Unfortunately, I had to do a 30-round review of that pistol. There was none other to be found.
The 5.56mm was the first caliber to noticeably be in short supply. This was first due to the war effort, the headlong adoption of 5.56mm rifles by law enforcement agencies ever since the great LAPD bank robbery and shootout, the general shooting public interest in and acceptance of the AR15 weapons system along with a realization that yes, the AR does have sporting purpose, and of course now, this new fear that is on the street. Sales of ARs also went up following 9/11.
What is odd about this new fear is that it is not coming from the average citizen gun owner out there, but it is coming from what to me is an almost shocking source: street cops.
Street cops and SWAT cops that I know from various agencies - rural, suburban and metro - in my area are scared. Cops that before November 2008 never gave much thought (that I knew of anyway) to politics or more importantly to gun rights. For the most part, these are the guys that didn’t generally have any interest in shooting or gun ownership beyond keeping track of where their duty gun is, and a few of them didn’t even do that so well.
The guys I am talking about now are some of the same guys who used to not even carry off duty on a regular basis- but not anymore They don’t scare easily, defenders of the Constitution of this State and the United States (as our oath of office reads), have been buying ARs, survival gear, and all the ammo they can lay their hands on. All of them (or I should say “us”) have been discussing and have been acquiring guns to provide a layered perimeter defense.
We want something in .308 (or in my case a superb M1 Garand in .30-06) for covering the outer perimeters, 5.56mm weapons for mid-range use (for some with more limited funds, the AK-47 and 7.62?39 cartridge will suffice), and for the close up stuff shotguns and handguns (love my Benelli M4 Tactical and Beretta 92 9mm).
What are we suddenly so afraid of? Well in our discussions it seems to boil down to four areas.
First, fear of federal government intrusion into our lives. Every time I look at or listen to the news, there is something new and intrusive coming out of the Obama administration and this Congress. New tax schemes, government-run Canadian-style healthcare, a volunteer citizen defense force (whatever that is, what happened to the National Guard?) equipped with funding similar to our military, forced voluntary “service” after retirement, a lack of a southern border with hordes of illegal and criminal aliens pouring over our border, the swine flu scare as well as government forced closing of thousands of privately held Chrysler and GM dealerships, which will be the final nail in the coffin for these companies and the list goes on and on.
But these items in the news are just the tip of the iceberg. We can’t see the full impact of these actions yet, but we don’t know what was added into the thousand of pages of stimulus package bills in the dead of night yet. I predict however that when the plans contained in the stimulus packages go into effect, a lot of us are going to be surprised if not shocked by what has suddenly and sweepingly changed.
What also scares us is the second, well-founded fear that there is an assault weapons ban looming, one that would make the Clinton Ban appear like a look of disdain in comparison. I remember well the 1990s and the Clinton years: the rise of militia groups, the “black helicopter” rumors and paranoia, all of which was motivated by the Brady Law and the Assault Weapon’s ban. What if a new ban comes requiring registration or confiscation and turn-in of banned weapons as what happened in Australia?
I watched cops and citizens alike purchase these guns at $900 dollars and more, with custom or tricked out guns easily running into the $2,000 range. Then add on all the accessories, red dots, lights, slings and anything else you can name and you may have up to $3,000 wrapped up in your rig. I saw the looks in their eyes. These purchasers weren’t spending this kind of money just to turn in the guns for no compensation when a government tells them to. I foresee much civil disobedience coming down the road.
Americans are citizens, and not subjects like the British, Canadians or Australians. They just don’t always obey the law blindly and not one officer or citizen that I spoke to said anything like “I hope I get to keep this gun for awhile before they are banned; They are fun to shoot, so I would hate to give it up.” It isn’t going to happen, so the cop on the street and the soldier on the base needs to think now what he will do if the orders come down. I think you all get what I am saying here.
Which leads me to the third fear, that there is a revolution coming, yes, a revolution on the scale of the original American Revolution. You can hear this topic discussed on many of the talk radio shows by even the big name hosts. The possibility of an armed revolution against the U.S. government is being discussed, albeit very gingerly and fleetingly and as something to be avoided, which it is. I never heard this mentioned in the 90s.
One of my quietest, low profile officer friends brought it up the other day. He said that at some point in the near future, he felt there is going to be an armed revolt if things keep going the way they are. Something has got to give. I was shocked. Yes, I had heard this from some of my more radical cop friends in the past, but to hear it from a guy like this was unprecedented. Now, these guys are not saying this will happen to foment revolution, preach sedition or to even participate. They just want to be ready if it happens, to at least defend their families, because number four on the fear list is general societal chaos.
Cops fear for their parents, wives, children or grandchildren more now than ever before. Most cops are encouraging their spouses and loved ones to get concealed carry permits. Not only that, but some of these same cops are buying gun mounts for their personal cars so they can carry an AR in the family ride at the ready all the time. They are also strapping on heavier forms of off-duty hardware. I have other friends that are issued ARs or subguns for tactical team use, who always have their gear with them and are planning on just commandeering these weapons for personal use in defending hearth and home.
Final Notes
This is pretty heady and maybe even dangerous stuff. Know fully that I am not advocating anything here. I am reflecting to you what I see and hear going on around me, and maybe saying things that haven’t been said in the open, until now. It is something to think about.
*Written By: Scott Wagner is a Police Academy Commander and Professor at Columbus State Community College in Columbus, Ohio and Commander of the 727 Counter Terror Training Unit. A 29 year law enforcement veteran and current Deputy Sheriff, he is the Precision Marksman for the Union County Sheriff’s Office SRT Team.*
An Author I admire put it this way. What is the point where you must resist? Clearly the object is to avoid the Gulag or the Ovens or the Work Camp. Resisting too late (as the Jews did) is clearly a failure, but shooting Government officials because they post speed limits is too soon. In my estimation the 2nd Amendment is the trigger. Register and Disarm the people and there is no going back, no way to refund this right. Once the State controls the means of Revolution, the people are done. They are now sheep to be controlled and eventually slaughtered. Socialism appears to attack everything that uplifts and strengthens the individual, eventually turning to destroy its own people. Over and over we have seen it, in every race and culture that has tried it. Bad Times are coming.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by Criminal: Revolution coming? Cop says: http://bit.ly/1xTsvP Read the comments. Hope you stocked up…