I suppose the obvious answer is “of course they do - same as you would, if it was a member of your family”. And I’m as pro-police as anyone, so I’m not trying to insinuate anything negative at all, but let’s say there are two random shootings that occur at different gas stations, late at night in Anytown, USA.
One is committed upon an off-duty officer, filling the tank in his pickup-truck, on the way home from a shift. The other is committed upon a random guy, buying a 6-pack of beer, on the way home from his job tending bar to support his wife and kid.
Generally speaking, would there be much more “follow-up” done on the first case? And what about a crackhead getting shot in a drug deal gone bad? I suppose the “elephant in the room” is that - well, he “sorta had it coming, considering his lifestyle”… I can’t imagine there being nearly the investigative work done in that case, compared to the first situation I described. Or is there?
No, they shouldn’t. Yes, they always have and probably always will. And there’s fuck all we can do about it, as no matter the regulations or restrictions or mandated guidelines put in place they’ll find a way to work around or above them. That’s what power does.
They shouldn’t show favoritism, or prejudice. But I’m not as bothered by the favoritism as the the prejudice. Let’s be realistic about this. You do your job the best when you have the deepest personal interest in it. Total objectivity is a pipe dream. Favoritism will happen. The serious problems occur if the police use the circumstances to violate the law, and I don’t think favoritism for other cops is the greatest cause of that. If it is, then I’ve giving them too much credit, and I don’t really give them very much credit.
If the answer is no, what basis do you feel the police should use to decide how intensely they investigate a case?
Should they investigate every case until it’s solved, even if that involves working a hundred hours a day? The obvious flaw is that there’s only a finite amount of resources, so the police have to figure out some means of dividing up those resources.
Should every case get a fixed amount, like four hours? And if you haven’t solved it by then, you quit and go on to the next case. But suppose each case takes six hours to solve. If you give every case four hours, you’re not going to solve any cases. You’d be doing better to give half of your cases two hours and the other half six hours - if you do that, you’re at least solving half your cases which is better than none.
Of course in the real world, not all cases are equal. Some can be solved in under an hour. Some won’t be solved after weeks of effort. Should the police only work on solving the easy cases? How do they know which cases are going to be easy or difficult before they start working on them?
Suppose a cop works his regular forty hour week investigating all his cases but then offers to come in on his day off to work one particular case on his own time. Do you tell him he can’t do that and that he has to give each case equal attention?
As Nawth Chucka said “No, they shouldn’t. Yes, they always have and probably always will.” I accept that. My beef is how they investigate the case when the off-duty police officer shoots the guy with the six-pack of beer, because he heard someone shouting behind him and thought the store was being robbed.
They should go with the severity of the crime, of course. If, in this case, two crimes are equally severe, they should get equal intensity.
And while I’m a bit more optimistic that it might be able to happen someday, I know no law is going to be able to make it happen.
And, anyways, if the difference is small and all important crimes still get investigated, it’s not that big a deal. It’s more important to deal with cops putting themselves above the law. We got the cops who incite violence or who try to cover up for one another to deal with first.
I’m very much in favour of egalitarianism, but I think “having your death investigated thoroughly” is not an unreasonable perk for a police officer to have. After all, being a police officer IS dangerous, and that small extra deterrant to someone shooting you is a good thing – and may help in the long run, if it helps police officers to control dangerous situations while everyone knows it’s especially bad to shoot one.
I think having a few cases prioritised is always going to happen. What is wrong, is when police officers are automatically let off major crimes (eg. being caught on video beating someone to death). Or when the police are so determined to catch the perpetrator they don’t care about catching the ACTUAL perpetrator, they just arrest whoever’s nearest. Or when rich people are accorded special status. Or when crimes against women, or poor people, or black people are automatically ignored. I realise that’s a difficult line to walk, occasionally prioritising a case, without prioritising so much that anything NOT in that bucket is ignored, but I think the division is something like “if you do your job with a bit of extra effort, that’s ok, but if you deliberately avoid doing your job, that’s wrong”
What crimes against women are automatically ignored?
On the subject of the OP I think its simply human nature to ‘look after your own’, as long as it isn’t taking time, effort and resources away from the investigation of other incidents (at least to a disproportinate extent) I don’t think its really a problem. Its not the same as the police covering up the illegal actions of another officer for example.
In a big city in which lots of shootings occur I have no doubt more man power would be allocated in the case of a police officer. In a decent sized suburban community like mine shootings don’t happen that often. Each one is an all hands on deck situation and investigated very intensely. Although I’m sure emotionally there would be more at stake, I don’t know how we could do more than we already do.