Watch Your Mouth!

It never ceases to amaze me when officers are told publicly that they 'might ruffle some feathers' when they actually speak the truth. In case any one had forgotten, when we get up on the stand we swear to tell the truth, the W-H-O-L-E truth and nothing but the truth. Now if the truth is uncomfortable for some the boss's, well, too damm bad. You make a deal with the Devil, you pay the Devil his due when he says' time to ante up". Now that might not be good politics. But if we got into the job for politics then we had all better go take a v-e-r-y long look in the mirror and decide which part of the job is more important; our willingness to keep our mouth shut when we know what is going on is wrong or to stand up for what we know is right.

And in case any one has forgotten, the Constitution applies to officers as well as civilians. Frankly, the Supreme Court should be ashamed of itself in the California 'Garcetti' case regarding the public exposure of a search warrant being obtained under knowingly and deliberately falsified information. The fact that the ADA had to take the case to the Supreme Court to get a hearing, decision not withstanding, is beyond professional shame and embarassment of the Court.

Now I don't pretend to say that what is right is always legal. We've all been thru that in court. But are you really in the profession to not stand up and make a difference somewhere ? If you are, please do us all a favor. Resign now before you windup creating more problems than we already have.

As far as words coming back to haunt you, get usd to it. It's part of the profession. It's part of standing up for what you believe in and for standing up for those who depend on us to stand up for them when it counts, namely the victims in court. And if that means we have to take the occasional 'hit' for expressing an unpopular or opposing viewpoint, well, if you aren't able to withstand the criticisim I am wondering how you ever passed FTO. I also wonder how well you are going to do on the stand when the defense counsel decides to go after you.

Steve,

Your article is on point. Although I am outspoken and brutally honest, as you well know, I have suffered because of it. Don't think that just because you're right or saying it for the right reason will not land it I.A. Here's a news flash...in most agencies there is no screening process for I.A. investigations. That's right, you can end up going through a stressful and long investigation for nothing.

What I mean by this is that you must weigh what you say and what you are willing to go on record about because there are consequences. Going through your union is a better way to voice concerns and be shielded because "union speech" is protected free speech. BTW, check out the "Pickering Test" about your free speech rights as a LEO. You don't have unfettered free speech rights as an ordinary citizen does.

KD

Steve,

Great article, and a well-stated caution for those of us who write for, and enjoy sharing our thoughts in, the online realm.

While there is certainly a time and place for strongly worded or impolitic speech, a lot can still be said for civility the majority of the time.

And if anyone thinks that an article, editorial, forum posting, or blog rant intended for a select audience won't be picked up - and FAST! - by someone outside that audience who can turn it into your receiving a large chunk getting ripped out of your glutes, think again. Trust me. Really.

Good piece.

I think the article has value. He's not telling us to avoid telling the truth. He's warning us not to say stupid things. We have all seen the discussion where one of our brother officers responds to a thread about a policeman being spit on with a comment about how that officer would have adjusted the perp's attitude with a wood shampoo. That is a dumb thing to say (and a really dumb thing to say in writing) and the next time there is a citizen complaint or, even worse, a civil suit for brutality, that officer better hope nobody connects him to his dumb comment. We don't know whether the officer had a few drinks at the keyboard, thought his comments were limited to his peer group, or is just one of those folks we all know who uses his badge to cover his personal insecurities and has to sound tough. What we do know is that his words can come back to haunt him.

Here's what amazes me ... Officer.com finally acknowledged that too many anti-police perps and nutjobs were posting on their site. They announced their effort to curb such online activities. However, in the meantime, Officer.com has virtually blocked all legitimate and righteous postings from veteran LEO's ... and, more importantly, they have blocked or failed to allow real, true and valued comments. Officer.com will falter and fail if it continues on this path.

(Ed -- officer.com: Here is the thing we could do one of 3 things. In the past we preferred to leave posting comments as open as possible and review comments that are reported as offensive. Because of complaints we have gone to approving comments before they go on the site which obviously takes more time and is slower. We can't do it both ways. The 3rd option is to have users register and log in to post comments so that banning is stricter, but we wanted to keep the barrier to participate as low as possible, epically when we started doing comments. If you have feedback on which of the 3 you like best, we'd like to hear about it. To be honest the first 2 have the best chance of being chosen because the 3rd can impact future growth which is a decision made by higher ups... but if everyone would rather quicker approval and would put up with the offensive stuff for as long as it takes to get reported and taken down, I'm sure we can do that fairly easily.