From this article we get this quote from a police official:
“Officers’ safety comes first, and not infringing on people’s rights comes second,” Healy said.
So the question is, is this right? Should an officers safety rise above a citizen’s civil rights (provided the citizen has not performed any action that directly endangers the officer)?
Absolutely not. Otherwise we get Katrina-style gun confiscation for “officer safety”, warrantless searches for “officer safety”, and officers ordering you around like JBTs for “officer safety”. They need to find a more creative solution or other options, I’m sure they’re out there.
If you take that statement at face value, he’s saying officers should shoot every civilian they come across that presents a threat. Let’s think about that real hard, shall we?
Sorry, my personal safety comes before any one else’s including any bluejacket local. Of course this story comes from philly and elsewhat would one expect from the bos(bagosh**) running that department?
Officer safety is of zero concern to me.
The drug war is a direct affront to individual rights and ever drug warrior killed while doing that job deserves it.
Here I’d been going along thinking that the reason we gave cops their paychecks was to risk their safety protecting our rights.
If Healy’s right, what exactly would we be paying cops for?
To give the government a reason to increase taxes to pay for more of them, Elmo.