Posted on 07/06/2012 9:28:35 PM PDT by Altariel
New York courts have decided that police will not be protected against drunkenly shooting citizens, the NY Post reports. Suddenly, the NYPD will need to cancel all of its kegger-patrol parties.
Right now, a regulation requires all cops who open fire on a suspect to complete a breathalyzer tests. It’s sounds to us like a fairly reasonable requirement. If cops are going to be driving around town and pointing guns at American citizens, then they shouldn’t be under the influence.
The law was created after four police officers shot and killed Sean Bell in 2006. It’s been a hard six years of on-the-job sobriety for the NYPD, but police advocates were hoping to change all that.
Three separate police unions made arguments in court that the rule was unconstitutional, but Manhattan federal Judge George Daniels was having none of it. He made sure that police will have to get a dose of their own medicine, so to speak, by proving via breathalyzer that it was their own judgment and not a rum and coke that pulled the trigger.
Daniels wrote in his decision, “Armed police officers are given awesome power. The NYPD has a substantial interest in ensuring that its officers — especially its armed officers — are fit for duty.”
D’oh!
If you wish to have 24-hour a day authority; responsibility and accountability go right along...
Thats too much to hope for, but at least making sure they aren't hammered seems reasonable. But apparently the thugcop unionists didn't think so...
So unions argued that on the job sobriety requirements are unconstitional? What a joke. Did they honestly think they could win this one? That’s just funny.
I wonder if they think it is unconstitutional for truckers to be required to drive sober? Aren’t most truck drivers union?
Yep. Just what we need.
So, let’s say, just for the sake of argument, (of course),that I’m in a bar, and an off duty policeman his just finished his one beer when a shooter comes in.
Oh me! Oh my! What to do?
I hastily hand my entire wallet to the off duty policeman and say “Here is my hit payment to you! Now shoot the SOB before he shoots me!”
Yep. Probably not Constitutional at all.
What would we do without the Courts?
Fascinating suppositions:
1) You suppose that in that scenario, it is the responsibility of the government employee to provide you with protection, and not *your* responsibility to draw on the bad guy (along with every other conservative in the establishment.
2) You suppose that said officer will be legally drunk after one beer. If that is the case for that particular officer, then he should not be in the bar, drinking one beer, while on duty.
Take out a citizen, and jobs are stimulated.
Take out a truck, and many people are out of work.
Which is more important, human life, or big money ?
And he, if it is a he, looks about 15 years old so he has no business in a bar.
There hasn’t been a shortage of off-duty cops who get belligerent in local bars and pull their service weapon on the bouncer who’s throwing them out. (What really sucks is that said bouncers find themselves being prosecuted after putting a one-punch TKO on the cop and disarming his drunk ass.)
This also has a tendency to happen at house parties where the homeowner decides that the drunk cop has had enough and needs to take it on down the road.
” - - - while on duty.”
My totally hypothetical example specifically said OFF DUTY Policeman.
We Conservatives conserve bullets for legal hunting of game animals, and rely on our tax dollars to provide bullets for policemen to protect us from shooters.
Cops will find a way to get around this inconvenience.
It also involved an officer who became legally drunk (.08 BAC + ) after one beer.
The man’s weight would be so low (below 100 pounds) that you would suppose him a young kid or teenager who put on Daddy’s uniform than you would suppose him an officer.
Pulling a gun in self defense (protecting one’s self from a gunman) is a conservative virtue.
Demanding a government employee to protect one’s self is a liberal expectation.
As a simple matter of the kind of policing that a government at least nominally by the people, for the people, and of the people want, they have the right to ask that their gendarmes be teetotal on the job, drink Welch’s grape juice, or just about anything within reason. In the special case of officer who has to be undercover the rule might be waived. But it’s just a working conditions rule.
I carry my own weapon because I am NOT a sheep. I am perfectly capable of neutralizing a "shooter" on my own...because when seconds count; the police are busy infringing on some other citizen's Constitutional Rights.
Don't lump me in with your fantasy of what a "conservative" is.......there is nothing "conservative" about restricting your 2nd Amendment rights to "legal hunting," nor is there anything "conservative" about waiting to die while hoping for some union slug to save your sorry ass.....especially when SCOTUS has ruled the police, EVEN WHILE ON DUTY, have no responsibility to save you; they can sit idly by, while watching you get robbed, mugged, raped, and murdered.
Thankfully, Virginia allows you to carry in a bar so long as you aren't drinking and have a BAC of .00.
Good Lord, when did this country get overrun by so many limp wristed sissies? 'officer officer, save me.'
My ammunition (the "bullet" is just the lead part) is not for hunting. And in my observation, cops, drunk or sober, are not for protection. They're mostly revenue enhancers on the highways and thugs in the cities. You're mileage may vary.
” - - - Pulling a gun in self defense (protecting one’s self from a gunman) is a conservative virtue.
Demanding a government employee to protect one’s self is a liberal expectation.”
Not sure how you logic goes here - - - ?
Conserving means to conserve, and a liberal means to be generous with other peoples’ money, ideally at no cost to themselves.
Not sure how guns are in your political logic?
” - - - Good Lord, when did this country get overrun by so many limp wristed sissies? ‘officer officer, save me.’ - - - “
The job of a Police Officer is “To Serve and Protect.
Out West each town required the lawman to ask all gun-toters to leave their firearms with him while they were in town.
That is how the Limp-Wristed Tradition began, with our Frontier Lawmen.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.