The officer who wrote, Molon was not silent. The partner who was driving is not silent. Many police will stand up but there is a dynamic going on that is hard to ignore. The police are put in situations where they are under attack often. If their fellow officers don’t go to their aid without question they will get injured or die. That makes calling out a fellow officer a higher barrier than it would be for us to call out a fellow worker. This situation I have seen no police standing up for Mohammed but in other situations when the truth is not yet clear officers wait & see without condemning.
That is why there are review boards to get to the facts and a clear decision without fear of retribution. The review boards are the real battleground of truth vs coverup.
We took a good friend and his wife out to dinner a few nights ago as it was his 80th birthday. He was our town's first police chief who was forced into retirement 20 years ago by reason of a heart attack. It has been interesting to see just how long it has taken for his what I will call for lack of a better term “cop mentality” to subside.
Being in law enforcement forces a change in one’s outlook on one’s fellow man that appears to be inescapable. Dealing with the dregs of society has a negative effect on cops and they end up seeing everyone as “potential law violators,” instead of friends or just people. There was a time that we didn't communicate because he saw any issue we spoke about that involved the deportment of the police as an attack. Thankfully, for the most part, at 80, he's able to see a complete picture, but it has not been easy for him to "rejoin” normal society. It is sad that that is the case, but I personally think the “us vs them” mentality is pervasive in law enforcement because of self-preservation.