Crap. :smack: Now I get the joke.
Honestly, I didn’t even see the other thread until just now.
-3 clever points for me, assuming I earned 2 to begin with.
The cops had responsibilities aside from what DtC appears to think are unnecessary activities such as stopping looters or rapists.
LEOs are there to protect and assist non-LEO first responders as well. Environmental agency first responders rely on LEO assistance. If there is a hazwaste issue, LEOs are needed to make sure citizens stay out of hot zones. They are needed to ensure that other first responders get access to where they need to be; they have an authority that your average governmental worker doesn’t wield.
The cops who decided to quit without giving notice :rolleyes: let everyone down. Like all first responders, they should have had their families already prepared and gone before they had to report to duty–this was not a surprise emergency, they knew they would be needed.
Fuckers.
Low Earth Orbit?
My best guess (and it is just a guess) is Local Enforcement Officer, although for all I know he might be talking about Leonard’s Enormous Organ.
wellllllllllllllllllllllllllll…i do believe we can all simplify my login name and just call me “leonard” from now on.
…now, about that “'log in”…
hey, where the white women at?
I believe I have an angle of insight that allows me to make particular observations.
Yet I don’t think you even understand what you’re advocating: giving carte blance to those in ‘critical positions’ (such as police, military, ER Doctors, firefighters)? C’mon. . . These people have a civic responsibility, which they freely chose to accept, but can’t just lay down at the drop of a hat.
Tripler
Shit, we might as well just let all the prisoners quit serving their sentences whenever they feel like it.
I don’t usually revive old threads but the New Orleans Police Dept has announced that 45 officers and six civilian employees have been fired for abandoning their posts during the hurricane. Fifteen other officers resigned when they learned their absense was being investigated.
The main problem for these officers is that other officers are labeling the cowards. 10 went to Dallas and were turned down for jobs because of running from New Orleans. No department is going to want to employ these people knowing they will run during a crisis. Perhaps a new career in security awaits them.
Two of my very good friends on the police force stayed. They considered it their duty to stay and protect the city. They and many others stayed at their posts with little food, water, communications and gasoline to patrol for days before FEMA and the National Guard came in with supplies. Their opinions of AWOL cops = cowards. They are in a position to judge those who left. Police officers must be able to trust each other. How do you trust someone who runs while you hold your position?
Care to explain this asinine tarnishing of an entire profession?
If they can’t get employment with other police agencies, where else will they employ their training, computer programming? What the fuck makes you think I was tarnishing an entire profession?
Well, hoping that someone who’s proven that they’re useless in the field of security gets a job in the field of security kind of doesn’t grok. On top of that, those who actually work in the security business, such as security guards, seem to be fond targets on this board.
Cops are not “security” they are law enforcement. Failing to maintain your post and enforce the law in the face of a cat 5 hurricane does not make you unfit to man a security desk at an office building.
My point is proven. Thanks, Cheesesteak.
Well, cops are law enforcement and so are security guards. They’re both responsible for certain parts of law enforcement and there is some overlap. It’s insulting–even if you deny it–to insinuate or even state that a failed cop should look into security guard employment.
While I am sure that there are many security guards in high-stress jobs, there are exceptions. The security company that works in my office advertises as a “great job for retirees”. They pretty much just sit at a desk and hassle people who forgot their employee ID badge. I mean, barring one young guy, not one of them is in any kind of physical shape. Heck, a young girl (around 18) used to routinely chat on her cell phone for hours or fall asleep with her head on the desk. One of the guys is in his 80s. Compared to that, I’d just as soon have a dishonored cop who fled New Orleans to defend his family. Morally ambiguous at best, yes – but at least if someone attacked me in the parking lot, he or she might be able to do more than just stare at me and call the cops if it looked bad enough.
Let these cowards patrol DtC’s neighborhood, not mines. Fuck the cowards.
On the other hand, why the fuck would any of them want to come back?* The NOPD ain’t exactly the Boy Scouts. I have no doubt that their lives would be in danger.
FWIW not a single officer or civilian showed up to the hearings to defend their actions, although some of the roughly 200 did have acceptable reasons and are being dealt with in other ways.
Except in New Orleans, of course. In the mid 90’s, an estimated 75-80% of NOPD officers had second careers in security. Often on police time, in uniform and using police equipment.
Diogenes, with all due respect these individuals quit when they were needed. It is alot like training an army to have them all quit as soon as a war starts. There is an expectation from our public servants that they will fulfill their contract with the public. Now, I agree that family should come first and there are certain circumstances where some officers, having to choose between the death of their family, and their duty, did not report to work for a day or two. But, once their family was secured, they had a duty to go back.
My husband works for a prison, and as I am sure you can imagine, he has faced some harrowing situations. It pains me each day thinking about him going to this place, because I know that his devotion to the job would compel him to stay at his post when the situation worsened. I am saddened by that, but I understand because it is men and women like him that stand their ground and protect our society everyday.
Although we have not expereinced a hurricane, my husband has faced several incidents where he could have chosen his family over his work when the going got tough. There were times when he placed himself in a position where he could deprive his family of their source of support, but, given his nature, this is why he carries large amounts of life insurance.
I know it sounds almost cold and morbid on his part (it did to me until I understood his character), but he plans ahead to ensure that in the event of his death, matters are handled.
I remember 9/11 when it all went down. My husband was at work and they ordered the prison locked down and all non-essential personnel evacuated. In three dorms he had some inmates laughing at the TV’s and this caused racial squaring off. I got a hold of him briefly in the middle of it. I was crying because I knew my grandmother was in the air as we spoke. I also had to tell hubby that his father was on a plane, out of Boston. I begged him to come home and be with me. I could tell it pained him greatly, but he simply replied that it was his job to stay where he was and he would be back when he could. That was putting work ahead of me, but I understand now that it was the right thing.
I remember when three death row inmates took one of his staff hostage. He realized a critical juncture was available when they started organizing and he ordered the door to the pod opened and went in with only 5 officers. There was a Captain who refused to go and a Lt. He went in and got the staff member out and saved her life and protected her from what I am sure would have been an extremely traumatic experience. He thought of his duty first in that split second, not his family.
He and I have discussed plans for what will go down if a major disaster strikes. He has planned out primary and alternate places for me to go and I know what to do. I know damn well that he will come for me AFTER he has fulfilled his duty to the people of this community.
I remember, just recently, when there was solid information that a riot was going to occur on a specific date. My husband had ordered massive shakedowns and interrogations. They recovered dozens of weapons, identified major STG (Security Threat Group) activity and identified leaders. Even though he did everything he could, he still thought the riot was going to break out on the day. I cried and yelled at him in the kitchen the night before, telling him not to go into work. It was a weekend so he did not have to and I tried to use every logical argument I could to change his mind from the current position he was taking, “It was his people who were at risk and he needed to be there with them. He knew that within the first few hours of a critical incident, good leadership and swift decisions are crucial.” He went to work. He came home that day, but it was like having razor blades shoved into my stomach all day. He thought of work before his family that day too.
So, I got real personal here Diogenes, so that I would not be told “I am not in their shoes”. I believe that every wife and husband, son or daughter, mother or father of a soldier, police officer, firefighter, corrections officer or any other public servant would have similar stories. Being a public servant, and being married to one, is not just a job, it is a devotion to the order of society and the safety of the community. Anyone who is close to one of them knows that a good public servant is a noble individual and he/she probably annoys them how noble they are because sometimes they choose their duty to the society they serve over their family.
This is why some people call these cops cowards. As everyone knows, courage is not the lack of fear, it is being afraid but still going. So, although each case should be judged independently, a police officer, who when the going gets tough during a critical incident just “quits” as you state, it is not the same as giving your two weeks notice. Except for the cases of the people who got their family to safety and then returned to work, the others failed the people in their time of need and never should be beelived if they swear an oath to protect, serve and uphold the Constitution. They were weighed by this event and were found wanting.
One could also state that it is insulting to think that fitness for security guard employment = fitness for police employment. I believe that a job with the police is more demanding than the average security job. If one cannot handle the police job, there is no reason to think that one cannot handle a less demanding security job.
Feel free to explain to me how the security job at my old office, manned ably by an 18 year old girl with no weaponry other than a door buzzer and a telephone, is as demanding as being a cop in New Orleans.
Here’s a question. A (hypothetical) NWO cop chooses his job over his family. He secures an area and once it’s reasonably safe, goes home to check on his family. Unfortunatly, because of the lack of communications, he wasn’t told his house was severely damaged and his family is dead. Do you console him by telling him he “made the right choice”? It’s a hard thing…show up for work or save my family (if they are in real danger). For those cops in that situation, they have my sympathy. The rest are cowards.
D’oh, lissa said it better than I could.