They should never have become police officers if they had DtC attitude, IMO.
Another question for which I can’t decide what side of the fence I’m on…
My gut feeling is that is was pretty despicable to “run”.
But on the other hand, what would really have been accomplished if they all had stayed, and stayed on duty?
They had NO communcations.
Their cruisers would have been nearly useless in a city that was 80% flooded.
Even if they were able to navigate the streets, they would have run out of gas very soon.
And the only “authority” they had left was deadly force - because there were no jails to take the disorderly and the looting and the raping miscreants to.
And because of all the above, I can’t see that they could have “rescued” any more than a handful of people - and those would have mostly been the people who were capable of rescuing themselves.
Faced with that reality, I’m not so sure I wouldn’t have said “Fuck it - I’m getting myself and my family the hell OUTTA here!”
I’m wondering, too if they could pretty easily get another job pretty soon - I mean, who would they check references with at the NOPD? I’m not sure how that works, but that may have also been a factor in the decision-making process of whether to flee or stay.
I can’t say for sure - I wasn’t down there, and I am not a police officer. Which is why I can’t come down on either side of this.
This is the part I’m still having trouble with. It is every father’s duty to protect his children, every husband’s duty to protect his wife. Protecting your family is a duty.
Yet every time a policeman puts on his badge, he does so with the possibility that he may not make it home to protect his family. Yet according to some, protecting his family is priority number one.
It’s almost like taking a job where your life is on the line every day is a dereliction of your duty to protect your family. You cannot protect your family if you are killed in the line of duty. Surely the best course of action would be for nobody to place their family in such peril as being husbandless/fatherless by taking a job as a policeman.
I understand there were many mitigating circumstances, many of which lorinda outlined above. But I just can’t excuse those who quit. I understand the anger and frustration that would come from being out there and getting no backup whatsoever, but you don’t just quit. You can’t. You’ve got a job to do and there are people depending on you to keep order and save lives. And you knew when you signed up to be a cop that this day would come. Hey, being a cop in New Orleans is not all graft and doughnuts! Sometimes you gotta work. Cut off from communication, you go and find the central staging area and regroup to retake the city. You don’t just quit.
It’s a problem everyone that works in emergency response deals with, that’s why the divorce rate is so high among police and firefighters. Spouses/partners of cops and firefighters mentally white-knuckle it while their beloved is working at protecting the populace. They end up resenting the job, and through the resentment of the job, also resent their spouse/partner for doing it. Especially if the cop or firefighter got the job AFTER the marriage/whatever.
In this case, I would suspect that the cops who chickened out and ran were ones that were on the fence anyway. Roughly 200 cops out of 1700 split, and two ate their guns after seeing the destruction. Every department has those cops that are just there half-assing it ‘just because’ and not for the reasons most imagine one would become a cop for (sense of duty, etc). These aren’t really bad numbers. Frankly, I’d like to know how many Soldiers/Marines/Sailors went AWOL from Iraq, I would bet that percentage-wise, the numbers are fairly similar.
It’s a high stress, low-satisfaction job, with all sorts of dangers, and with the conditions of the police department, and the gov’t of the city of N.O. BEFORE Katrina, I’m honestly suprised that more of them didn’t leave.
I’ve been in my share of danger zones in 15 years as a firefighter, and I can tell you that I’d stand fast in the face of everything short of an actual nuclear explosion (in which case, I’m on the next thing smokin’ providing of course I don’t get vaporized). Mrs. Jockey knows it, hates it, and will deal with it, until she’s tired of dealing with it, at which point she’ll marry some nice accountant fellow, and live happily ever after.
So, to sum it up. The cops were, IMO, chickenshit. But what they did was not only excusable, but admirable (if only by a few) in the name of their families. They should definately NOT be allowed back into any sort of job where the public trust is required, but neither should they be thought of as deserters. They are certainly NOT AWOL, and despite the chest thumping that some of my esteemed fellow dopers are doing, I’m not sure how many of them could take the proverbial heat and make the ultimate sacrifice for a complete stranger over their own wives, husbands, and/or children.
If you have enough people, it is possible to communicate without radio or telephone. Foot messengers are a little slower, but they can get the job done, if you have enough people.
So what would the Administrators or Moderators do if one of these New Orleans cops joined the SDMB?
[sub] sorry, just trying to see if I can get this thread moved a 4th time to ATMB[/sub]
“Me of all people?” What is that in reference to?
My position is that unless you have been forced to make certain kinds of decisions under crisis, then you are in no moral position to judge the decisions that others make in those situations because you have no idea what you would do.
No.
You, of course, are as judgement free as a newborn chicken.
I would hope I would stand and do my duty. If I fled, I would be ashamed of myself, and I would accept what castigation came my way, knowing that I deserved it.
You have a computer? And electricity? And everything? Out there in the middle of nowhere, self sufficient as you must be? Or are you one who reaps the benefits of a society without feeling any responsibility to it?
A hurrican is an act of God. I expect a lot out of our public servents, but hanging out for a hurricane is not one of them.
Then don’t take the damn oath in the first place.
I just talked to my brother who’s currently commanding a National Guard brigade in one of the hardest hit parts of New Orleans, and he’s been working closely with the New Orleans PD for the past 19 days. From what I understand from talking to him:
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For most, if not all, of the NOPD, it wasn’t a dramatic either-or situation, (your oath or your family). Almost all the police lost their homes. However, most saw their families off and reported for duty. They saw to both their families AND their duty. Those that needed to report late in order to attend to their families were allowed to without rancor.
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The police he talked to had absolutely no respect for those that quit, deserted, or whatever you want to call it, semantics aside. Most of the police who stayed are doing so while their families are hundreds of miles away, and it’s tearing them up.
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My brother is starting to hate New Orleans.
Granted, my information is second hand, so take it for what it’s worth.
I assume that (for example) your future comments on the progressive income tax will be prefaced by your personal experiences of both grinding poverty and luxurious affluence. :rolleyes:
How would that discussion entail understanding a personal moral crisis?
Not even close.
As best as I can figure, about 600 Army soldiers have deserted from duty in Iraq. Out of 120,000 stationed there, that represents a rate of 0.5%.
The rate for the cops in New Orleans was 11.76%, some 23 times higher.
It’s not exactly as easy to desert in Iraq as it is in New Orleans, and quitting a police force does not involve a risk of legal consequences, so I don’t think the situations can be fairly compared. If military personel in Iraq were simply allowed to quit with no consequences (and with some sort of easy transport home), I think you’d see those numbers rise quite a bit.
But the cops in New Orleans didn’t really quit, now did they? I’m sure most of them gave no notice and no notification.
It would be fairer to say they failed to report for duty.
Now duty implies a societal need far beyond a normal job. It is defined as a job you are obligated to perform for legal or moral reasons.
These cops shirked their duties. And your defense of them, Diogenes, won’t excuse their behavior to most clearthinking people.
a cop takes an oath for the job. i suppose they could get him for purgery. a worse fate and a much larger stretch would be to hit him for treason. imagine if an elected official did the same. what if the mayor left town? this debate would have been raging for a while now. that’s how reporters become news readers. tom brokaw read the news after being around in places where nobody else was and telling people what it’s like in there because it’s his JOB. you choose your career. cops and firemen do too. they’re not heroes. they’re just people. personally, i think it’s unfair to affix the “hero” label to anyone. that’s quite the obstacle to overcome to be a normal person. it’s like going to a party and someone saying “hey, i just told jean that you’re a funny guy, bob. say something funny.” what comes out is NEVER funny. heroic acts happen, very rarely are they manufactured.
…talk about straying from the topic, huh?
Well, I “bet” and you “figured” but neither of us has a cite, and I’m frankly not charged up enough to get one, though I would look in your crystal ball for Sailors, Marines and Airmen too, Moto…
[QUOTEMr. Moto]
But the cops in New Orleans didn’t really quit, now did they? I’m sure most of them gave no notice and no notification.
It would be fairer to say they failed to report for duty.
Now duty implies a societal need far beyond a normal job. It is defined as a job you are obligated to perform for legal or moral reasons.
These cops shirked their duties. And your defense of them, Diogenes, won’t excuse their behavior to most clearthinking people.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps they didn’t hand in their gear, perhaps they just walked away, but the end result is the same, dude. Try not showing up to your job for a few days, and see if the company doesn’t assume you up and quit.
Yes, they failed to report for duty, and in this case failure to report for duty means you no longer want to work at that particular place. Look, we’d all like to believe these officers were programmed robots, unable to deviate from their planned directive, but they weren’t, and they aren’t. They’re human beings scared shitless about the horrible thing that was happening to them, and to their families. They chose flight instead of fight. Cowardly? Sure. Defensible? Absolutely.