plutherus

As sworn officers of the law, when you see a crime being committed, you have an obligation to do something about it. Sometimes, the only thing that can be done is to report it, to make an official statement, and perhaps testify in a hearing or a trial.

All citizens bear this responsibility, but none so much as the men and women of law enforcement.

This still holds true when the person perpetrating the crime is a fellow officer of the law.

When Officer Anthony Bologna was wandering through the protests this week, casually assaulting non-threatening people with caustic painful chemicals, he was breaking the law. Mace is issued for the purpose of having a non-lethal method of eliminating a threat. It's purpose is not, and never has been, to punish fellow citizens for expressing an opinion of which you disapprove, any more than a billy club is to be used for that purpose.

To use it as a rebuttal to speech, to intentionally cause physical pain and possible harm to people who do not pose any threat, is the action of a thug, not of an officer of the law.

I, and most of those currently protesting in New York, and many people throughout the United States, realize that that vast majority of police officers in this country are law-abiding, often helpful, and frequently downright nice people.

But police such as Anthony Bologna still give each of you a bad name, especially when their actions go unchallenged. In each of the videotaped incidents involving Bologna last week there were uniformed police present. Their faces seemed to register surprise or shock at his actions as he casually maced penned-in protesters and just as casually walked away, like a thief who grabs a wallet of a table and strolls on away trying not to call attention to himself.

There is an attitude, part of the culture of law enforcement, that you don't turn on your own. You don't report the actions of your own. Sometimes this can actually be a good thing, as not every minor infraction of the law needs to be reported, no more than you write a ticket to everyone who drives a few miles over the stop sign, or arrest every kid who is caught with a joint.

But, at other times, the actions go beyond minor infractions, and stir up more resentment and, in an already charged climate could even lead to an increase in violence, the one thing you're all trying so hard to avoid in New York right now.

Police protect fellow police in order to make all police safer. But many times, it has the opposite effect. But ignoring his actions, by helping to cover up excessive violence on the part of others, you are furthering the belief that police, in general, cannot be trusted. By diminishing the public's trust in the men and women of law enforcement each time you are pushing more people toward the belief that the police, rather than being the defenders of a free society, are actually its enemies.

I urge all police officers, in New York and throughout the country, to come forward in cases like this. When a fellow police officer breaks the law, when they go over the line in a way that causes suffering to other people, I urge you to do the right thing. File a report. Bear witness to what you saw. Doing so may sometimes seem like a betrayal – but who is really doing the betraying? The ones who are violating their oaths to protect and serve, or the ones who attempt to hold them to it? Police officers of all people need to be trusted. By coming forth and testifying when you see egregious wrong-doing you are increasing that waning trust that the public has in you. You are letting people know that they can go to the police for justice. You are breaking down the walls between yourselves and “ordinary citizens” and in the long run making your jobs easier and yourselves and your fellow officers safer overall.