The article from today's issue of the NY Times headlines by reading, ' New Breath Test Policy Shadows Detective's Case'. In this case, we're given a rare opportunity to see what happens when police officers and detectives are put in coincidental situations off duty that require immediate police attention (which, under the law, allows off-duty police officers to not only respond to the situation, but also to carry a police authorized hand gun on them, as well as their badges).
My 'rant' on this is not going to be the typical rant. Normally, I will quite intentionally pick apart a situation word for word in order to place the true heart of the article and/or situation on the chalk board in plain English for everyone to read, so that they can understand things a bit better. This time, that's not the case.
A 44 year old veteran Narcotics Detective for the NYC Police broke up a fight where a man was getting beaten and required immediate aide. Upon attempting to take proper police action to help subdue the group of individuals that were assaulting the individual, a gun was pulled by one of the men who was involved in the assaulting, and shots were fired at the detective. The detective, following exact police procedure, fired back, hitting the perpetrator in the arm and the leg. Here's the kicker, the detective had never discharged his 9mm weapon prior to that time. Why? There was never a need to.
The detective saved lives that night. He was then also given a breath test. The detective's alcohol count was just touching the 0.09% mark. For those of you who are not familiar with the numerics behind the breath tests, that number is equal to a 'fraction of a sliver' above the legal alcohol limit of 0.08%. For saving lives, not a life, but several lives, the 15 year police force veteran was put on modified suspension and is awaiting a court appearance.
Now let's think about this seriously for a moment ok? How many times have any of us thought, or spoken, to ourselves something along the lines of, 'Where are the cops when you actually need them?'. In this situation, the cops were not only there, but jumped in and handled the situation not only properly, but in accordance to every single police protocol regulation in the book. Lives were saved. No one was killed. The only one to get injured in the entire situation was the person who initially pulled a gun on the off-duty detective and shot at him (and missed).
A veteran detective from the police force took control of the entire situation and saved lives, but in the end, got punished for it because he was slightly over the legal limit of alcohol content in his blood stream.
I'll go over this one more time, slowly, so you can possibly try to find some sort of logic in this. A 15 year veteran of the NYC police force who is trained as a narcotics detective (which, in layman's terms means, not stupid, knows his stuff and handles much worse and dangerous situations on a daily basis), was placed on modified suspension/duty (meaning, he was stripped of his police issued gun, and placed on lesser hours and likely a desk duty position so that he would be taken off of street/active duty but still be able to receive pay and benefits as his position allows), after saving the lives of several individuals from gun fire. Key phrase there... saved lives. Not life. LIVES.
We're talking about a person who got punished for doing the right thing. Think about that, and then I dare anyone to try and tell me, convincingly, that our justice system isn't seriously fucked up.
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