Police vs. the world

Well, it has finally happened. The city of New York is one step closer to giving loud and politically active special interests their pound of New York Police Department flesh.\nOfficers Gescard Isnora and Michael Oliver have been indicted on charges of manslaughter, and Officer Marc Cooper was indicted on a misdemeanor endangerment charge.\nIn case you do not know, this case stems from a shooting outside a strip club in Queens where Sean Bell was killed and two of his associates were injured. An uproar has resulted as the three victims were black.\nFirst and foremost, I want to say that this happening to three young men is a horrible tragedy.\nHaving said that, let me also say that the way the city of New York is going about resolving this issue is equally tragic. The city is abandoning its police officers to placate certain political views.\nPolice believed that Bell and members of his party were going to retrieve a gun to settle a dispute with other bar patrons. When an officer approached the car, it pulled forward and rammed the officer. It then rammed into an unmarked police van twice. At this point the officers opened fire, the result of which has the officers charged with manslaughter.\nSo what’s the problem?\nPolice officers responded to a disturbance, and when deadly force was used against them, they responded in kind. That should be all there is to it.\nI wish I could say this kind of betrayal of officers of the law is an isolated incident, but unfortunately it is not.\nFormer Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean have each been sentenced to serve more than a decade in prison for the crime of shooting drug dealer Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila. What makes the conviction of two hard-working law-enforcement officers even more outrageous is how they were convicted.\nIn one of the most disgusting abuses of prosecutorial discretion in recent memory, U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton of San Antonio agreed to give Aldrete-Davila immunity in exchange for his testimony against the agents. Adrete-Davila, in an attempt to rub salt in the wound, has since filed a $5 million claim against the federal government.\nBeing a hard-working police officer and safeguarding your community with your own life for little pay apparently does not get you as far as it used to.\nEqually as disturbing is that our political leaders are not standing up for them.\nShortly after the shooting of Sean Bell, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was quoted as saying, “It shows us that despite all the progress we’ve made in this city we really do have a long way to go.”\nWay to throw your officers under the bus, Mr. Mayor.\nPresident Bush, for his part, has taken no action to help the Border Patrol agents. Even I would jump on the bandwagon for the president’s impeachment if he refuses to help these imprisoned agents.\nThe bottom line is that the officers in the Bell and Border Patrol cases should be getting medals – not prison.