You live in a small town, by your admission. A murder is basically a generational thing in small town America. It’s front page news when somebody is murdered in small town America and, according to the stereotype, the criminal is always named Dwayne.
That is a far different culture in Big cities, where handling the worst that humanity has to offer is a nightly thing. You can get a dozen incidents of the worst that humanity has to offer on every shift. Your expectation is that they should be professional, no matter what they find and deal with is unreasonable. It’s not even on this side of the galaxy in remoteness of reasonableness.
You sound like those anti-war activists who want soldiers prosecuted for shooting a terrorist dead, while not waiting for the terrorist to set off his bomb before not responding. They are being as reasonable about soldiers as you are about police officers.
Cell phone photographs don’t because we are in agreement when they are operating in public they should conduct themselves appropriately. But when they are operating with an expectation of privacy, there should be no expectation of professionalism, if it means dealing with what they have to deal with.
If a cop can keep professional at all times, then he’s in a cream puff job. Your expectation of police officers might fit a small town, but in no way would it work in the city.
You claim to not hate cops, but your expectations of them would drive them out of the police force.
“ But when they are operating with an expectation of privacy..”
Once again, Skippy. Sitting in a city owned vehicle talking on a city owned radio on a city owned street while investigating the death of a citizen at the hands of another cop is NOT a place where a public employee has ANY expectation of privacy. That has been litigated over and over and over again. I don’t know why you are unable to grasp that very simple fact.
He had ZERO expectation of privacy and he should know that. The Police Chief of my town tells his cops to assume that every move they make and every word they say while on duty can and probably will end up on the front page of the newspaper. So they should conduct themselves accordingly. If he by some miracle didn’t know that then that Department has some serious training issues.
So this conversation is over.
Have a pleasant day.
L