Police officers should be held to a higher standard
Former Chattanooga police officer Kenneth Freeman should be in jail. Freeman has been re-fired by the Chattanooga City Council but that’s not enough. Police officers shouldn’t be held to a lower standard of conduct than private citizens, they should be held to a higher standard.
After five hours in front of the Chattanooga City Council, fired Chattanooga police officer Kenneth Freeman will stay that way. Fired.
First, a little history of Freeman’s story. Last summer, Freeman was relieved of his duties amid domestic assault allegations. Authorities told us then that they responded to a apartment complex on Mountain Creek Road. That’s where Rose Blanks told police that she and Freeman were arguing. That’s when she says Freeman threatened her.
He was fired in August after an Internal Affairs investigation into several different incidents. Police spokesperson Sgt. Jerry Weary said one of those incidents, “..alcohol was involved and he was found to have been carrying a firearm at the time which he consumed alcohol.” She said investigators at Internal Affairs were actually looking into two cases involving three violations of department policy and procedures. “One was for turning in overtime sheets for time he had not worked,” Sgt. Weary explained. Weary added that amounted to fraud, among other things. “And then the third was for conduct unbecoming,” Sgt. Weary said.
Peace officers should never be allowed to hide behind a badge, a department or a flag. An armed peace officer who shoves an old Wal-Mart greeter is not a professional, he is a criminal.
In one case, Officer Freeman was investigated for consuming alcohol while armed, carrying an unauthorized off-duty firearm and conformance to law. In the second case, he was investigated for insubordination and two complaints of conduct unbecoming an officer, police spokeswoman Sgt. Jerri Weary said in a news release.
Three complaints were sustained — consuming alcohol while armed, conduct unbecoming an officer relating to fraud by turning in hours not worked and carrying an unauthorized off-duty firearm, she said. His termination is effective immediately but he can appeal the decision to the Chattanooga City Council, Sgt. Weary said.
Officer Freeman served a 28-day suspension earlier this year after an internal affairs investigation that he exhibited conduct unbecoming an officer, improper procedure and excessive use of force in connection with an assault of a Wal-Mart greeter.
If I did all the things listed in bold, I would be going to jail. Kenneth Freeman got fired. That’s getting off easy. While I think it’s great that Mr. Freeman no longer has the ability to hide behind a uniform, gun and badge I believe he should be held to the same criminal penalties that I would be times two. If an armed police officers abuses his or her authority the penalty should be doubled. Frankly, I’d like to give Kenneth Freeman a good shove. He violated the trust placed in him by the citizens of Chattanooga acting through their proxies. He abused his authority. Kenneth Freeman should pay a heavier price for his criminal behavior.
Criminally incompetent oversight of incompetent criminals
A lot of dollars are being wasted and stolen in Iraq and Afghanistan. The amounts are staggering. One of the primary avenues for theft, waste, fraud and abuse of these funds which may eventually have to be paid back by your children and grandchildren is that much of the day to day war effort is being undertaken by private contractors who under perform and over bill the government. Since the government forcibly passes the costs of the wars on to the public taxpayers end up footing the bill for frittering away billions of dollars to ship people from all over the world to dusty guard towers where they can sleep in uncomfortable chairs.
Demand for contractor services is heavy, while oversight of their work isn’t. That means problems often aren’t discovered until long after the payments have been made.
A major trouble spot is the business systems and procedures that companies use to bill the government. The numbers are eye-popping. Defense auditors have found at least $6 billion in questionable charges generated by sloppy accounting or, worse, contractors trying to bilk the military.
Yet, the Pentagon has done a poor job of recovering the money and forcing companies to improve, according to the independent Commission on Wartime Contracting. The panel cites dysfunction among auditors and contract managers, a shortage of personnel and a failure to be more confrontational with contractors who don’t measure up.
To be fair, I never saw a guard sleeping when I was in Iraq from 2005-2006. I did, however, see lots and lots of examples of money being wasted on ridiculous projects. Retrofitting conference rooms that were perfectly serviceable at a cost of millions per room is one example that immediately springs to mind. I sat in several meetings where we discussed spending money just to keep budgets at their current levels or to justify increasing them in the coming fiscal year. This is how government thinks.
In late 2007, the military belatedly began paying attention. Numerous contract violations were found, several of them serious, leading to a flood of what contracting officials call corrective action requests. Last fall, the Army Criminal Investigation Command opened an inquiry to determine if Combat Support Associates overbilled the government. The case is ongoing.
While the army says it is breaking up many of the abused private contracts into smaller more manageable pieces maybe the key is to minimize the use of private contractors to fight America’s wars. It might also be helpful if the government considered reducing the size of the war fighting machines it has created in the first place. I’m pretty sure Obama has been a great disappointment thus far to those who hoped for any change in foreign policy regarding how we win wars. After all, you are still paying for contractors to collect money and build nothing in return while empty job sites are guarded by imported private contractors being paid six figures to sleep in uncomfortable chairs. Open your pocketbook and smile at the man with one hand out and the other hand resting lightly on his gun.
Chew them up and spit them out
Why anyone would want to wage war on behalf of his or her country is beyond me. I’ve done it and certainly don’t look forward to any repeat performances. Military service is a Catch-22. They tell you you’re a hero and then treat you like a criminal. They tell you the martial profession is honorable and then treat you like scum.
Sergeant Jermaine Nelson is pending court martial at Camp Pendleton for murder. He could receive life imprisonment.
This is all over speculation, innuendo and testimony from events that happened in Fallujah more than four years ago. Let me ask you this. Why would anyone sign up for the Marines and volunteer for combat missions if they have a high chance of being charged with murder after the battle? I sure as hell wouldn’t. If someone has been shooting at me all day and killing those around me it is highly unlikely that they are going to survive close contact with me.
Yes, there are rules of engagements. Yes, prisoners should be treated humanely. But this is war. War cannot be won without warriors. If you treat your warrior class like your peasant class your chance of winning conflicts declines on a rapidly sliding scale. This should make every American in uniform ask him or herself who is going to get their back when they have bullets coming downrange at them? What sort of welcome are they going to receive when they get home? How many years later will it be when the same people who started the war they fought in come to arrest them for fighting in it?
Bureaucrats make the rules that soldiers live and die by. Bureaucrats judge how the rules were followed. I’d like to all hand to hand missions in America’s next war fought by bureaucrats. They’ve earned the honor.
Federal arrogance
The United States Constitution seems pretty clear to me most of the time. The federal government, on the other hand, has a lot of trouble interpreting and following the highest law of the land in a manner I can fathom.
Here is the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
I may be wrong but as far as I know the federal government of the United States has no legal authority to regulate much of anything that happens inside the borders of a sovereign state. That is, unless that state asks for help in regulating this, that or the other matter. Perhaps I’m wrong about this, in which case, please explain how I’m wrong. It might help me decide to live somewhere else in the near future.
You see, I much prefer the idea of diffused power to the idea of a strong central authority that micromanages the lives of its subjects. I don’t want to be thought of as a subject. I want to have choices. A country with 50 distinct political flavors and 50 different approaches to solving problems is inestimably more palatable to a man like me than one where people I have no access to can reach out and jail me on a whim at any given moment for violation of some dictate or another.
Let’s talk for a moment about federal arrogance. If I am right, and all powers not specifically granted to the federal government are reserved to the people of the states themselves then how a letter from a federal employee to gun distributors in Tennessee, a sovereign state, is acceptable? The federal government has no constitutional authority to regulate weapons inside the borders of a state. Yet we have a career bureaucrat lecturing weapons dealers in the state on how the federal government and not the local population will decide what is and is not acceptable when it comes to citizens and firearms. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Assistant Director Carson W. Carroll warns Tennessee gun dealers in a letter written in his glass and concrete tower that:
The act purports to exempt personal firearms, firearms accessories and ammunition manufactured in the state and which remain in the state from most federal firearms laws and regulations,” Carroll wrote. “However, because the act conflicts with federal firearms laws and regulations, federal law supercedes the act and all provisions of the (federal) Gun Control Act and the National Firearms Act and their corresponding regulations continue to apply.
This is the kind of thinking and action that almost guarantees another American civil war in the 21st century. The federal government’s many arms already routinely ignore the documents that are supposed to bind them. The federal government is supposed to have control over interstate commerce, not regulation of alcohol, tobacco and firearms. There is no constitutional mandate for stepping into state business. Where does the federal government derive its authority to legislate anything that goes in inside a state’s borders in the first place?
The federal government gets around this by pretending that interstate commerce is somehow tied to how many rounds a pistol magazine should hold or what the maximum percentage of alcohol should be in beer. In order to ensure compliance with the vast array of illegal rules that the feds have created a choking mechanism is needed. In the case of tax compliance the government chokes employers. In the case of weapons compliance the government chokes dealers. Dealers must obtain a Federal Firearms License to operate a successful arms dealership in the U.S. This unconstitutional requirement forces you to sign documents giving up your right to due process and at the same time levies taxes on every weapon you buy or sell. The ATF can search and seize any property you own at any time for any reason and it does so all the time. In fact, the ATF has a reputation for harassing, bullying and intimidating gun dealers.
Over time the arrogance of men and women you’ve never met deciding exactly how much self-defense is acceptable for you, the law abiding citizen, makes a lot of people consider being a little less law abiding. The real point though, is that America would be a better place to live if the feds stopped blundering around stepping on everyone else’s toes all the time. The constant arrogance generate letters like this one:
I am not an FFL holder. I never wanted to put myself at the mercy of your unconstitutional, bully-boy agency whose malfeasances, misfeasances, perjuries and deadly misadventures are legendary. I have observed first hand your agency’s ability to cow FFL holders into not fighting you in court when you violate your own rules. Your agents often push the line of what constitutes statutory compliance with the threat that they will come back with a raid party if the FFL holder doesn’t knuckle under. Having my business, my livelihood, my family’s safety and my life at the whim of brutal thuggery such as exemplified by “Waco Jim” Cavanaugh at the time of the Trader’s Gun Shop raid here in Birmingham, or Jody Keeku’s railroading of David Olofson, never interested me.
Go Google David Olofson. It’s worth your time.
