BY KAREN WEBB
I was really distressed to see that the New York City Police Union decided to turn their backs on the mayor at the funeral of their fallen police officers. Supposedly they did it because they felt he was encouraging people to shoot officers because he refused to overlook the idea that it is possible to have bad actors in any group.
I was a member of the Communication Workers of America when I worked at Southwestern Bell back in the ‘60s and ‘70s and while they did a lot of good with benefits and pay, nothing ticked me off more than for them to keep those on my crew who were really bad employees.
My opinion of the NYC Police Department went down several degrees the minute they turned their back on the idea that it is possible to have bad police officers. As I understand it the person who shot the police officers had mental problems.
Just because this past few months has produced five or six bad ones doesn’t mean all of the several million police officers are bad. The idea that none of them could be bad is absurd. The police union should be trying to protect their officers by actively getting rid of the bad ones and not rewarding them.
I was once on a jury back in the ‘70s where a man who owned a racetrack in Houston was charged with aggravated assault of an off-duty police officer that was hired at his track. It was all I could do to keep from jumping out of the jury box and assaulting the officer myself. I don’t know that I have ever seen a more arrogant abuse of police tactics in my life.
I think I am getting the picture after what the NYC Police did at the funeral, what the Cleveland Police Union spokesperson said after a police officer who should have never been on the force shot a 12-year-old two seconds after arriving on the scene and a professional football player said what he felt about it.
The union said, “Listen football teams or anyone else, if you want our protection you had better keep your mouth shut.”
– Karen Webb lives in Moore, OK and is a frequent contributor to The Oklahoma Observer
