TheAgitator.com
Cops Gone Wild
Monday, May 18th, 2009Good editorial from the Washington Times:
The nation’s capital is recovering from a week of cops running wild. Every year on May 15, National Peace Officers Memorial Day is celebrated in Washington…
For years, local residents have whispered to one another to stay off the roads at night during National Police Week because of all the police cars swerving wildly after the bars close. This year, the Metropolitan Police took the unusual step of ticketing cruisers because so many were parked illegally. Roll Call ran two photos last week of out-of-state police cars parked in a handicap spot and a space reserved for Zipcars. Emergency fire lanes across the city were blocked by police cars.
The dangerous activity is not limited to automobiles. Drinking while carrying sidearms is an annual part of the celebrations. A few years back, one inebriated officer tripped out of a bar in Chinatown and unloaded his pistol on the bell tower of nearby St. Mary, Mother of God Catholic Church.
At Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium two years ago, four officers from Signal Hill, Calif., made a public spectacle of themselves at a Nationals-Braves baseball game. With little regard for safety and even less concern for their appearance, these law enforcement officers were chugging down beers while in full uniform with their pistols on their hips and spare bullet clips on their utility belts. One concerned spectator asked them if it was against police regulations to be drinking alcohol while carrying weapons. In response, one of the officers teetered over, spilled his beer, put his finger to his lips and slurred, “shhhhh” – giggling uncontrollably.
Talk to people around D.C. You’d be surprised how many have personal stories about caddish off-duty cops during Police Week.
I simply don’t believe it. One set of rules for us, and another for them. No way!
Or ride Metro and listen to the cops themselves rehash their exploits from the day before.
1,000 McNultys roaming the streets. Now that’s a scary thought.
I… I feel so safe!
That’s because I stocked up on food and water and barricaded myself in my home for the week.
And I changed the address on my door to six eight eleventyfive umlaut just to be sure it can’t be on a search warrant, accidentally or otherwise.
C’mon Radley, give these guys a break. I mean, these American heroes need to blow off some steam after a long year of beating up brown people and tossing kids in jail for smoking dope. Can you imagine how hard it is to be the strong arm of big brother, it must be tiring! Show some empathy, Balko!
Seems like a great opportunity for a photojournalist… just be sure to make up one of those “photography licenses” Radley linked to earlier.
You know what would be awesome? If someone set up a bus to take these cops for “free drinks” in Anacostia once they got too drunk to realize where the bus was taking them.
If DC is ticketing people for parking in their own driveways they really have to ticket these jokers as well.
“n response, one of the officers teetered over, spilled his beer, put his finger to his lips and slurred, “shhhhh””
Will the author yield for a question? How is it possible to slur “shhhh”?
@9
It is difficult to spell, but I shall try…. “Sfffttttttllllllllttthhhhh.” It involves a fat trigger finger and a corpulent tongue, uncontrolled by a nervous system, not staying where it belongs, jutting uncomfortably (to the observer) out of the mouth.
A few years ago I found myself in Manhattan for a single night and the hotel had a going away party for a local cop and I got assimilated into the crowd after talking to one of them. Full bottles of Jameson’s were being cracked open. Its doubtful anyone picked up the tab (I sure didn’t pay anything).
I can’t imagine an entire convention of them. The next day’s flight was pure hell for me.
With examples like that, how can anybody deny the right of the average citizen to carry firearms? At least we get in trouble if we’re drunk and packing.
Drinking while carrying sidearms is an annual part of the celebrations.
How are such people not simply arrested?
They arrive with one shirt and a $20 bill and don’t change either while in town!
I’m guessing there are some strip clubs and hookers (hey…there are a few working in DC) involved with the convention.
Thorn #13 “Drinking while carrying sidearms is an annual part of the celebrations.
How are such people not simply arrested?”
lol good one!
Why do out-of-state cops get the right to even carry in the district?
Its hard to get a right to even possess in your own home in the district. If you have a license in e.g. MD/VA and are travelling through DC, you must keep ammunition and the weapon separate and secured.
Yet, they allow a bunch of non-residents from thousands of mile away, visiting for a party, to openly carry loaded sidearms, and then get totally wasted.
SJE “Why do out-of-state cops get the right to even carry in the district?”
Because the “we’re a special brotherhood of heros” is such a strong and controlling idea and the us versus them mentality. Plus nobody’s going to even attempt to hold them accountable.
JS “Plus nobody’s going to even attempt to hold them accountable.”
Of course not, they’re drunk and packing. I’d stay away too.
One can only hope that when they drive drunk, if they kill anyone, they’ll kill only themselves, legislators, executives and judges and any other State sycophants and trough feeders.
Its that way if its police week in DC and at local events like 4th of July fireworks, Fireman’s Fair, etc. In my town the cops are the worst offenders of public intoxication at such events. Like they own the place. A few years ago, in Newark, NJ, local law enforcement was coming from a bachelor party at 4AM and got involved in a stolen car chase they heard on their scanner. In the end, a 14-year old joy rider was shot to death by a carload of party goers…strapped and drunk. No one questioned if they had been drinking. What ever happened to oversight?
If worried about the police, what do you think of their future role as portrayed in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eAaQNACwaLw
Jay#18 “JS “Plus nobody’s going to even attempt to hold them accountable.”
Of course not, they’re drunk and packing. I’d stay away too.”
Well, true but I mean, legally. Like lawmakers could condemn this nonsense and pass laws against them having a drunken party while carrying guns but no lawmaker has the guts to do so for fear of being seen as the anti-law and order candidate. It would come back to haunt him in the next election. The only ones who can ever hold our out of control police accountable are legislators and unfortunately they won’t.
#21, I dunno. I’d run on the “no drunk cops packing” ticket.
Besides, D.C.’s population has two big populations that would support it (a) rich liberals who aren’t so keen on guns and (b) poor people who are used to police abuse, and aren’t so keen on out of control cops.
Signal Hill cops, eh? They have a hell of a brutality history. It’s bad enough even white folks avoid the place if they can. They make the LAPD look like Campfire Girls.
#22, SJE, Yea I didn’t think of it that way. I honestly wish somebody would make our out of control police an issue in an election but I don’t know of anyone who ever does.
I live in Signal Hill and can tell you firsthand that the cops here are no picnic. I was walking with my wife one night and was stopped and asked for Id even though we were not doing anything. Another time I was walking to subway, and was stopped and asked for ID, again for no reason. SH is a small town completely surrounded by Long Beach that for some reason has its own police. Every other service, fire, animal control, ect is contracted through Long Beach. My theory is that the SH police are angry that the voters refused a couple of years ago to a tax increase which would built new headquarters for what is essentially a pointless police force. They also love to drive around a high speed on the city streets conducting training “exercises” They suck.
Fly in some Bobbies. They will restore order.
//Like lawmakers could condemn this nonsense and pass laws against them having a drunken party while carrying guns but no lawmaker has the guts to do so for fear of being seen as the anti-law and order candidate.//
What authority do lawmakers have to exempt off-duty cops from the rules that affect citizens? Doesn’t Article I section 10 paragraph 1 of the Constitution of the United States forbid states from granting titles of nobility?
“National Peace Officers Memorial Day”? I didn’t know there even nwas a day when so many self-congratulatory cops gathered in one place. What kind of officer would go to such a thing?
More importantly, why didn’t someone announce ahead of time that there was a day when the rest of the country was (relatively) safe?
This fraudulent annual police officers Memorial Day celebrates police “killed” in the Line of Duty, i.e. killed in traffic accidents mostly. Some killed in accidents which they caused due to inattentive driving.
Only about 50 police officers are killed violently for the most recent year tabulated by our U.S. Dept. of Justice.
Wonder who many civilians are shot dead by police every year?
Hundreds?
That’s one little statistic that the DOJ doesn’t maintain for some reason……
Whim#29 good point! At the end of the day they still kill a whole lot more of us than we kill of them.
I think copwatchers’ conventions should be held there the same week.
Reason #4,912 why I shed no tears when one of our “brave boys in blue” passes into the big clearing at the end of the path…..
Some years ago I was out during the Police Memorial. That was enought. NEVER AGAIN!