Posted on 05/07/2003 4:13:42 AM PDT by .30Carbine
Vermont Cop Story: AP's Bias or America's?
May 6, 2003
I spent Tuesday's Hour One discussing this story about Vermont police officer John Mott. While off duty at 1:30 AM, Mott entered a high school through an open service door. He then asked a janitor to unlock a classroom so he could take pictures of displays by "passionate pacifist" teacher Tom Treece to present to an attorney.
The Associated Press headlines this story: "Vt. Cop Photographed Class Projects," pointing a finger at the cop as the villain. We had to go to a local paper, the Barre Montpelier Times Argus, to find the classroom details. But this is not a media bias story. I held off giving my opinion on these events just to see what my audience's reaction would be, as you'll see below. More:
The officer reports taking pictures of "a poster of President Bush with duct tape over his mouth and a large papier-mâché combat boot with the American flag stuffed inside stepping on a doll, along with pictures of Cuban dictator Fidel Castro and his co-thug reactionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara. They aren't "pacifists"! Besides, the whole so-called peace movement was organized around defending and protecting Saddam Hussein! The slogan: "All hail the idiot boy king" was posted next to a picture of President Bush as, Treece claimed, "a reason to reject the high school budget."
If Mr. Treece posted pictures of me and Ronald Reagan on the wall, this cop would be a hero and the teacher would be on his way out. Apparently there were "rumors" about this teacher's curriculum, so this officer investigated. It's reported that there's a "backlash" against Officer Mott, but not that there was any sort of backlash against the class content. Why does it take a cop, taking pictures at 1:30 AM on his own time, to find out what's going on in this class? Where are the parents?
Is this not a public school? Our legal division doesn't see any constitutional issue on the officer entering the classroom in his private or public capacity; there's no expectation of privacy in a public school. We had a police officer call us up and say that Mott was off duty and out of his jurisdiction, so he shouldn't have entered the school or asked to be let into the locked classroom. You can hear such calls below along with my lengthily reporting of the details. I dedicated more than an hour to this story, and here's why:
After 70 minutes of discussion, all my e-mails and calls similarly focused on the cop - just like AP did. "So what, Rush?" So we hear education this and education that all the time in this country. Everybody claims to care about teaching "the children." But if we really cared about education, 90% of the garbage going on inside classrooms wouldn't be permitted. We would have parents involved in their children's education that know every word on the chalkboard and in the books. A police officer - who from this story doesn't seem to have any kids in the school much less in Treece's class - wouldn't have to enter through a service door and then ask a janitor to unlock the classroom for him. The parents would have expressed their outrage; instead, there wasn't a peep.
That is a different question and is between the officer and his supervisors and between the supervisors.
That is absurd on several levels. We'll have to see what the departmental guidelines are in his police department regarding leaving his jurisdiction while on duty - lunch break does not automatically mean he can go whereever he wants on that break, especially if he is in a police cruiser (a key point I haven't seen covered one way or the other). And, the school administrator herself has said that school access guidelines were violated. The average private citizen has no standing to enter a school property at 1:30 in the morning - if you don't believe me, call up your local high school and ask if it would be OK if you did that yourself.
I really don't think that, even if that is true, that it was meant to cover a cop running a personal errand to pursue his own personal political agenda.
Can you at least stay consistant. You said if a cop gave you an order you would follow it. Apparently you only think the janitor would be intimated by the badge and not you. Do you think the janitor would be more intimidated by a cop than you because of his job ?
I have tried to direct the discussion back to the focus of the thread which was intended to be about indoctrination of children in public schools. Your insistence on pulling the focus back to the legality of the cops actions rather than the motivation for their occurrence seems like intentional obfuscation to me.
It seems to me that one issue is of national political importance and the other is one of local disciplinary or regulatory significance. One phenomena is rampant throughout the country and has behind it the intention of completely altering our political landscape the other seems to me to be a random individual act of personal passion. If indeed it violated any law or departmental regulation, we don't know, as you yourself concede that hasn't been established.
You can be indignant with me if you like. I still think you're creating confusion. Whether it is intentional or not only you know.
And he was on duty at the time. I think there is a fair chance he violated departmental rules,
Why ? The cop didn't sound careless or stupid
and I think that public servants, from cops TO teachers, should refrain from overt poltical actions while they are on the public payroll.
Not even to vote ?
Note I used the word OVERT.
Why would you have any problem ?
But still answer the question. Does it sound reasonable to you that the officer violated a known regulation, law or other rule ? The photo's are out and the lawyer was consulted after the photo's but before distribution. If he was a reckless cowboy they would have been sent immediately.
Did you, now?
You just called up the school and said, "Hi, I'd like to talk with one of Mr. Treece's students," right?
Then the school receptionist said, "Of course, just let me put you on hold while I page the classroom." She then put an 'intelligent and well-spoken' student on the phone to talk to a complete stranger. And does this randomly selected student resent having Treece's leftist doctrine and hatred of conservatives stuffed down his throat? No, of course not -- he considers Treece a fair-minded and admirable figure.
Which, amazingly enough, exactly matches your own opinion.
Surely you can do better than that...
No, the core issue of this story is whether the cop acted properly in exposing what that teacher was doing. I see little disagreement, except from CobaltBlue, that the teacher is out of line with what he is doing.
It seems to me that one issue is of national political importance and the other is one of local disciplinary or regulatory significance.
Well, that dog shooting in Tennessee was a local event, but since every locality has a police department of some kind, it resonates everywhere. Likewise, every locality has cops, out-of-control teachers and school board conflicts as to how to deal with such teachers. So even though I think this is ultimately a local issue for the locals at hand, the actions of the cop are of national interest - should a cop be allowed while on duty to carry out what is essentially a political action? I don't think he should.
Once again you have avoided the question, which is not whether he has a right to hold a different belief. The question is "does it indicate that he has instilled any skills of independent thinking in his students?". Since the majority of these minors are parroting his mindless point of view I would say...NO.
That is my point.
There is no problem at the school.
The superintendent has raised concerns of her own, so that is not necessarily correct.
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.